The Tulip Festival is upon us. Here’s an inside look at how one farm prepared

Rachel Showalter
·2 min read

Four Skagit Valley farms are welcoming visitors this year during the annual Tulip Festival that showcases their flowers.

It’s an event that takes the farms all year to prepare for. One new farm, Tulip Valley Farms, will be welcoming visitors for the first time this year at 15245 Bradshaw Road, Mt. Vernon.

The Bellingham Herald visited the farm before the big bloom to learn about everything it takes to get things running and ready for the festival.

Tulip Valley Farms planted 929,000 tulip bulbs of 40 different varieties in October 2022. Those bulbs were planted around rows of already existing hazelnut trees.

Those bulbs require year-long work to make sure they’re ready for the festival. That includes protecting the bulbs from the elements, weeding and mowing, battling soil fungus and managing pests.

Tulips are budding on Tuesday, March 28, at Tulip Valley Farms in Mount Vernon. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival started on April 1 but the tulips aren’t expected to bloom for about two weeks.
Tulips are budding on Tuesday, March 28, at Tulip Valley Farms in Mount Vernon. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival started on April 1 but the tulips aren’t expected to bloom for about two weeks.

“Tulips are a 12-month labor of love for about two weeks of color,” said Tulip Valley Farms CEO Andrew Miller.

It wasn’t until February of 2023 that Tulip Valley Farms made the decision to open its doors to the public during the festival. Since then, it’s been all hands on deck preparing the grounds for visitors.

Eight to ten employees are on the farm every day starting at 7 a.m. to prepare for the festival.

The team started by removing and transplanting hazelnut trees to make room for seven acres of parking and a visitor area. Then the team laid sawdust in the visitor area and installed fences and tents.

The team brought in three large shipping containers to mark the entrance to the farm. They cut windows and doors out of the containers that will be used for concessions, bouquet sales and ticketing. A large billboard entrance sign was installed atop the containers.

Tulips are close to blooming on Tuesday, March 28, at Tulip Valley Farms in Mount Vernon. Hazelnut trees line the rows of tulips.
Tulips are close to blooming on Tuesday, March 28, at Tulip Valley Farms in Mount Vernon. Hazelnut trees line the rows of tulips.

Decorative silos were brought in to stand alongside the entrance. The team also put up a tulip viewing tower, a pen for feeding baby calves, a gazebo and a separate retail tent.

“You know you’re doing something fun when time just slips by so quickly that you don’t have enough time to do everything you have to do,” said Tulip Valley Farms landscape architect Eric Hull. “It’s exhausting but it’s a fulfilling kind of exhausting.”

Next year, the farm plans to plant almost 3 million bulbs of more than 100 different varieties.