Skagit Valley tulip bulbs offer color, size, shape galore

SIXTH-GENERATION bulb grower Brent Roozen holds up yet another flawless, fat tulip bulb that won't fit through the hole in his perforated wooden sizer. At Roozengaarde, that's a good thing. Each bulb pulled from the company's Skagit Valley fields is inspected for quality and size four times before going to market, where Roozen says it'll outperform bulbs imported from Holland.

When it comes to bulbs, size matters. "It's pretty simple," says Roozen. "Bigger bulbs equal bigger flowers." Maybe this is the year we'll get over the Dutch mystique and buy locally grown bulbs. It makes sense that bulbs dug from Skagit Valley soil will be fresher and larger. Shipping from Holland is so expensive that imported bulbs tend to be smaller.

"From what my grandpa told me, I don't think Holland has any better growing conditions than we do here," says Roozen. Nearly two feet of free-draining topsoil, plentiful rain and the valley's consistently temperate climate produce large, full-color flowers. If you've made the trip to the Skagit fields during the annual spring tulip festival, you can appreciate the magic worked by this combination of soil, moisture and marine influence.

Those brilliantly blooming fields are backed up by acres of warehouses, fleets of trucks and hundreds of workers. Wooden flats filled with bulbs are stacked high overhead in vast warehouses. Huge fans blow near-gale-force winds to keep air circulating around the bulbs. Conveyor belts move bulbs along in what's called "the grading line," overseen by dozens of gloved workers culling, sorting and counting into trays for mail order. Some of the belts pop up and down, causing immature bulbs to fall through holes into bins to be returned to the fields for a year or two until they plump up enough to sell.

There's a seasonal rhythm to producing literally tons of bulbs. The fields are rotated every five years to discourage pests and refresh the soil. Crews start digging tulips in late May and continue through mid-July. Tulips are extracted from the soil with water separator rigs that allow the bulbs to float to the surface, thus leaving more soil in the field and reducing fuel and labor costs. Daffodil bulbs must be kept dry, so they're trucked in from the fields to be separated mechanically and the soil returned to the fields. By the time all the iris and daffodils are dug in late August, it's nearly time to start planting bulbs again for next spring.

Wholesaler Washington Bulb is Roozengaarde's parent company and the biggest bulb grower in the country with 2,400 acres of farmland. Flower bulbs fill a thousand of those acres, and are shipped all over the country and to Canada. Washington Bulb is one of the Skagit Valley's biggest employers, with 170 full-time workers year-round, ramping up to 450 workers during the busy times of the year.

Roozengaarde is the retail face of the much larger company, offering a display garden featuring every flower they sell. These three acres function like a live, visual catalog, where you can pick out and order the bulbs you like best. Then save shipping costs by dropping in for an autumn visit to pick up your bulbs, take a free fall planting class or rummage through the bins of bulbs for sale on the front porch.

Advice from these experts on how to deal with the bulbs once you get them home:

Always water bulbs in well when you plant, because they need to be wet in order to root. And despite the catalog and nursery push to buy bulbs in August, Roozen advises planting later in autumn. Ideally, plant them before the ground freezes, but as long as bulbs are stored in a dry, well-ventilated place so they don't rot, no need to worry. You can plant as late as February, and these knotty little miracle blobs will still bloom, though a couple of weeks later than if you'd planted in fall.

For a catalog or schedule of classes, see www.tulips.com or call 1-866-488-5477; you can visit Roozengaarde at 16031 Beaver Marsh Road, just outside of Mount Vernon.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Check out her blog at www.valeaston.com.