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Keukenhof History

Welcome to the kitchen garden

a living CATALOGUE OF EXQUISITE PLANTS

Keukenhof Gardens History

Keukenhof dates back to the 15th century when Countess Jacqueline van Beieren (known as Jacqueline of Bavaria who lived from 1401- 1436) used the land for growing herbs, fruits, and vegetables for the nearby Teylingen Castle's kitchen, so it was referred to as the 'Keukenduin', which is where the name ‘Keukenhof’ comes from as it translates to "Kitchen Garden".

In the late 1630’s the estate appears to have been bought by one of the governors of the East India Company who then commissioned Keukenhof Castle to be built in 1641. Then gradually over the years the estate grew to cover over 200 hectares or just under 500 acres. Then in the mid 1800’s, landscape architects Jan David Zocher and his son Louis Paul Zocher were recruited by the then owners to transform and redesign the castle’s gardens. They went on to create an amazing English landscape style which still forms the basis of Keukenhof to this day!

The Keukenhof Gardens Background


Moving on to 1949 and a group of businessmen that happened to be some of the best flower growers and exporters in Holland decided to take advantage of the castle grounds as they wanted to show off the amazing beauty of their flowers for all to admire, and to use the grounds as a 'living catalogue' to show off the products they sold, and that is how and when Keukenhof flower festival started as a spring park! The group decided to open their first flower show to the public and not just their business contacts, as they wanted all to be able to enjoy the beauty of the landscaped park with the flower exhibition. The first Keukenhof show opened in 1950 and was a major success from day 1 and the attracted over 200,000 visitors in its first year! Keukenhof has continued to grow ever since and now warmly welcomes over 1,000,000 visitors each year who come to enjoy the garden and tours of this horticultural masterpiece! The Keukenhof estate is now owned by Stitching Graaf Carel van Lynden and is managed by the Graaf Carel van Lynden Foundation.

KEUKENHOF GARDENS FUN FACTS!

1. 2024 will be the 75th Keukenhof Gardens Flower Festival!

2. The Keukenhof gardeners plant in excess of 7,000,000 bulbs each year!
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3. They start to plant the bulbs in October so they are in full bloom and ready for when the festival opens in March!
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4. Keukenhof Gardens welcomes more than 1,000,000 visitors each year, with the 2023 show welcoming 1.4m visitors from around the world!
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5. Keukenhof Gardens is located in Lisse, which is in the 'Bollenstreek' area, with Bollenstreek translating to 'bulb streak' and this is due to the number of flower growing fields in the area!
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6. Keukenhof employs around 40 people full time and during the festival season increases that to around 1000 employees in total!

Welcome to Tulip-Festival.com!

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A website born out of our passion for flowers and plants.

From a young age I was outside in the garden watching my parents’ planting flowers and looking after them.

We kept exotic flowers in a greenhouse which included things like birds of paradise, which I used to love.

When we first heard about Keukenhof, we were hooked! Literally millions of bulbs planted each year and blossoming into huge arrays of colour and beauty. The first time we saw it we fell in love.

We are lucky enough to be friends with some of the growers and see the passion that goes into the annual festival.

We want you to have the best possible experience on your visit to Keukenhof, so we’ve teamed up with one of the biggest ticket providers who also happens to be a local company in Amsterdam, Tiqets, so they are home grown, and we know they care about Keukenhof just as much as we do!

We’ve put together some of the best ticket combinations available to help you find the best tickets. Whether you just want the basic entry ticket, or want to enjoy the surrounding area as well, or even take part in the annual flower parade, we’ve got the perfect ticket for you!

We hope you fall in love with Keukenhof just as much as we did!

We also hope you like our site. We are passionate about it, so any feedback is always most welcome!

Unlike other sites, the only tickets you will see on our site are tickets for Keukenhof and other things to do whilst you are visiting Keukenhof. We are all about Holland and the annual tulip festival at Keukenhof and we wanted to concentrate on that.

Thanks for visiting the site.

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Benjamin & Vanessa - Tulip-Festival.com

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Pink and blue flowers

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