There are rows and rows of tulips of different shapes and colours at TASC. The tulip fields make for a stunning backdrop of spring splendor, Anne Bokma writes.
Luke Edwards Metroland file photo
Vistors come from all over to visit TASC Tulip Pick Farm in Ridgeville.
Luke Edwards Metroland file photo
Sarah Kuzee of Sarah Grey Pick Farm in Fenwick.
Anne Bokma
Paula Boots of JP Niagara Tulip Experience in Ridgeville.
There are rows and rows of tulips of different shapes and colours at TASC. The tulip fields make for a stunning backdrop of spring splendor, Anne Bokma writes.
Paula Boots grew up in the Netherlands, not far from Keukenhof, the largest tulip garden in the world, located about an hour outside of Amsterdam with 32 hectares (80 acres) of blazing tulip rows that attract more than one million visitors every year.
“Tulips are my life. When I was five years old, I was peeling blubs in a warehouse in Holland,” says the St. Catharines resident, who, with her business partner Joseph Garcia, operates the JP Niagara Tulip Experience in Ridgeville, one of three massive pick-your-own tulip farms that have opened in the area over the past couple of years.
Why multiple tulip farms within such a small geographic area, just a 10-minute drive from each other? Well, there’s some dirt behind the pretty blooms. You could call it the “War of the Tulips” due to the tension among these competing floral getaways, each of which is working to attract the most visitors, beginning this weekend, when masses of tourists are expected to land on their fields of glory.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
More on this later.
The farms have a lot in common, in addition to their location — expansive acreage, more than 100 varieties of tulips, “show” gardens that aren’t for picking, bulbs for sale, props such as bicycles and pianos on display in the fields, food trucks on site and they each charge about the same ($20 entry includes 10 tulips you pick yourself, extras can be purchased for $1 a stem).
Vistors come from all over to visit TASC Tulip Pick Farm in Ridgeville.
Luke Edwards Metroland file photo
About 90 per cent of the customers are women, many of them young Instagrammers who arrive with multiple outfits for their photo shoots. The tulip fields make for a stunning backdrop of spring splendour.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
TASC Tulip Farm in Ridgeville is the largest with 16 hectares (40 acres) — rented from the mayor of Pelham — with two million tulips. It’s a huge operation that arranges buses from Toronto, hosts “Sip and Savour” events (a bottle of wine, charcuterie board, chocolates and tulips will set you back $100), high tea on Saturdays and workshops such as terracotta pot painting and floral pressing, even pet photo sessions. It also sells merchandise ranging from Delftware, the blue and white pottery that’s a symbol of the Netherlands, to stroopwafels, a popular Dutch cookie.
TASC is an outfit out of New Jersey which sells bulbs and gardening equipment to major retailers such as Walmart and Costco. Jill McCourt, who owns the business with her husband, says visitors are drawn to the farm because “tulips are a way to shrug off winter.” And while daffodils may be a pretty harbinger of spring, they only come in one colour, whereas tulips pop with a kaleidoscope of colours in hundreds of varieties with romantic names such as Apricot Beauty, Bleu Aimable and Le Belle Epoque.
You’ll need to use your GPS to find your way along the winding country roads to get to TASC and anyone with mobility issues may find the uneven lumpy ground a bit difficult to navigate.
TASC was the first tulip farm in the area and employed Boots (now owner of JP Niagara Tulip Experience) who ran its first tulip farm location in Fenwick in 2021 at the height of the pandemic. She won an award for her efforts from the Pelham Beautification Committee, but then left TASC to start her own tulip farm.
The garden plot thickens when you learn that after TASC moved to its current location in Ridgeville, from its leased location off Highway 20 in Fenwick, the property was scooped up by Sarah Kuzee and her husband, Brian, who live next door, for $1.5 million. They then started their own tulip farm and named it Sarah Grey Pick Farm, after Sarah and their nine-year-old daughter, Grey. The enterprise has the benefit of a great location on the side of the highway on the land formerly leased by TASC.
All this competition is something McCourt at TASC isn’t pleased about. “It’s disheartening,” she says. “We started it, and we feel they are copying it.”
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
But business is business and tulips are becoming a driving force in the Niagara economy. On the day of our visit to Sarah Grey we run into Karen Estrada, on vacation from Saskatoon, with her husband Ron. They’ve visited Niagara Falls, The CN Tower and now this tulip farm.
Paula Boots of JP Niagara Tulip Experience in Ridgeville.
JP Niagara Tulip Experience
“I love tulips. They make me happy,” says Karen, who notes that her husband gives her tulips every year on their wedding anniversary.
“You can’t help but feel exhilarated, peaceful and calm when you’re out here in this field,” says Sarah, who has hired a couple of dozen local high school students to help her run the operation over the next few weeks.
You’ll also need a GPS to navigate your way over to JP Niagara Tulip Experience since it’s on a lonely country road (very close to TASC). One of the unique things about this property is that it’s ringed completely by trees, giving it less of a touristy feel. Here the rows of tulips are also narrower than the other farms, making it easier to traverse the land in search of the perfect tulip.
Asked for her thoughts on the competition, Boots shrugs. “It all creates a bit of a buzz, doesn’t it? It makes this area a destination.”
Right now, she’s far more concerned that it doesn’t rain this opening weekend.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
“At the end of the day, we’re farmers and, like all farmers, we’re dependent on the weather.”
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation