Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Fields of cheerful daffodil blooms welcome visitors for the opening weekend of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, with the stars of the show, the tulip fields, expected to make their dramatic entrance into bloom in the next week or so.

Festival mainstay gardens Roozengaarde and Tulip Town are already open daily. Roozengaarde has daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses in bloom now and Tulip Town includes an indoor garden. Both include tulip fields in many colors and varieties, gift shops, food and a chance to pre-order fall bulbs to bring a bit of the Tulip Festival to your own landscape. Other venues include Cow Town, a working, family-run dairy farm near Conway, with a farming museum and farm-animal petting zoo, open daily throughout April. Skagit Valley Gardens, with tulips, perennials, trees and shrubs, is open daily in Mount Vernon. Covered-wagon tours to see a herd of North American bison are available Saturdays and Sundays in April at Woolly Prairie Buffalo Habitat north of Sedro-Woolley, and Alpacas of Misty Ridge near Conway invites visitors to see its antique barn gift shop, u-pick tulip field and alpacas Saturdays. Festival events include Wood Fest, with wood carving and craft vendors and exhibits in Sedro-Woolley this Saturday and Sunday; the La Conner Not-So-Impromptu Tulip Parade April 8; and the Downtown Mount Vernon Street Fair April 21-23.

Taking a driving tour past the 15-mile radius of flower fields is free, but most gardens and farms charge an admission fee during the festival. Tours of the festival area by bus, bike and helicopter are available.

For more information, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival office is at 100 E. Montgomery St., Mount Vernon; open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. daily through April. Brochures are available at the festival office, next door at the Mount Vernon Visitor Center, or by phone: 360-428-5959. The Tulip Festival Web site, www.tulipfestival.org, lists events throughout the festival and includes a link to a frequently-updated Bloom Map of fields in bloom to help you plan your visit.

— Madeline McKenzie, Seattle Times staff