Guest blog Arie Dwarswaard: Enthusiasm with no end

Since Dutch Daffodils loves daffodils, we have asked several daffodil lovers to write a guest blog. The first person we would like to introduce is Arie Dwarswaard, editor of the magazine Bloembollenvisie. Thank you Arie for writing down your daffodil enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm with no end

When I was young, may be 15 years old, I visited with my father and grandfather the late mr. Karel van der Veek in Burgervlotbrug. Behind his house he had a field with a dazzling amount of different daffodils. For me it was the first time I saw the impressive variety in daffodils. As son of a grower I knew of course the different types, like the yellow trumpet ‘Golden Harvest’, the tazetta ‘Cragford’ and the triandrus ‘Thalia’. But there was more, much more and Karel van der Veek showed it. He told nice stories about hardly every specific variety. He was not only a friendly person, he was a true daffodil lover.

Keukenhof Daffodil Show

Many years later, when I became editor of Bloembollencultuur, now BloembollenVisie, I visited the Daffodil Show on Keukenhof. Every spring people like Aad van Ruiten, Piet Pennings (Rik’s father), Jaap Leenen and Henk Meeuwissen showed an impressive amount of daffodils. And the thousands of visitors on Keukenhof, they couldn’t believe that all these flowers were daffodils. Just like Karel van der Veek, all the companies who showed and show daffodils were and are real daffodil lovers. And that is what the daffodil makes so special for me. Of course you can plant every autumn 25 hectares of ‘Tête-à-Tête’, no problem. You know your market, you know your price. But most of the daffodil growers have more, many more cultivars.

Beautiful cultivars

Ten meters of this small beautiful new one, half a bed of another special thing, and so they have about thirty, fifty of hundred varieties. They grow it with passion, they show it with passion and they hope that consumers plant it in their garden with passion. And I? Every autumn I buy a hand full of different daffodils for my garden. And every spring I am deeply impressed about the beauty of daffodils.

Arie Dwarswaard

Arie Dwarswaard is editor of BloembollenVisie. One of his specialties is visiting shows and writing about the history of flower bulbs and the flower bulb industry. You can follow him on Facebook and LinkedIn. For more news about the flower bulb industry: www.bloembollenvisie.nl.

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