By Tammy Thornton
Among the many delights of spring, a visit to the Tulip Festival at Dalton Farms must make your bucket list of spring activities. Located in Swedesboro, New Jersey, Dalton Farms is a pleasant day drive from our Shore Local area. Visitors will be wowed with row upon row of gorgeous tulips on this 99-acre family-run farm.
With over one million tulips planted, you will find contrasting shapes, sizes, and colors, with varieties to suit any taste. While some rows contain monochromatic blocks of color for impact, others feature columns of artfully combined contrasting tulip varieties that complement each other beautifully. You may fancy the dignified Purple Lady tulip or the mysterious Queen of Night; meanwhile, you’ll get distracted by the wild Flamenco tulip, catching your eye with its fringed petals. You won’t want to miss the double tulips that contain so many layers of petals you’ll think you have stumbled into a peony garden.
Of course, everyone wants to capture this dreamy feast for the eyes. Young and old alike are armed with their phones, trying to stage the perfect selfie among the tulips. But expansive fields allow plenty of room to move among the rows of flowers, laid out in various major gardens throughout the farm. Fortunately, attendees can bring home more than a picture. This “U-pick” tulip festival allows guests to pick their favorite posies and pay a small fee for their bouquets as they leave. Admission to the self-guided tours allows guests to wander the aisles of flowers and access to each garden, and wagon rides are available for weary travelers.
After personally enjoying the magic of these stunning flowers, you may be able to relate to the frenzy that occurred over tulips during the Dutch Golden Age. In the 1600’s, passion for possessing tulips reached heights of maddening levels. At the peak of the craze called, “Tulip Mania”, merchants were trading the rights to tulip bulbs at ballooned prices equalling ten times the annual income of a skilled artisan. Some of the most prized tulips were those that had streaks or flames of colors on their petals. Ironically, this color-breaking that caused such beautiful effects on the petals was a result of the tulip mosaic virus, which weakened the health of the bulbs. Speculating traders were buying the rights to bulbs and reselling them before they possessed them. Eventually, the market bubble of trading in futures crashed.
If you find yourself coming down with a case of tulip mania, take heart. You don’t have to mortgage your house for a single bulb with a virus. Fortunately, hybridizers of today can breed healthy plants in variegated colors that mimic those in the days of Rembrandt. Tulip bulbs can be purchased through garden catalogs, local flower farms (including Dalton Farms), and garden nurseries without breaking the bank. Plant tulips in the fall since they must endure the harsh cold of winter to bloom beautifully in the spring. You’ll feel like you are burying a secret treasure. When planting or displaying your prized tulips, use caution, as both the flowers and bulbs can be toxic to animals.
Like all living things, tulips are only here for a season. Dalton Farms will be wrapping up the 2023 Tulip Festival on Sunday, April 23. They also hold different events throughout the year including a sunflower festival in fall.
We would love to see the tulips and spring gardens of our readers. Send your pictures, comments, and questions to: shorelocalgarden@gmail.com.
