Early in May 2023 I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I visited Amsterdam while The Keukenhof Tulip Garden was open. The garden, open only 2 months in the spring, features more than 7 million bulbs planted the fall before. It is in the municipality of Lisse, an area of many tulip farms and about 40 minutes' drive outside Amsterdam. The gardens welcomed approximately 1.4 million visitors during its 8-week run this spring.
The Garden's date back to the 15th Century when it was the kitchen Garden for Teylingen Castle. The current configuration in the English Landscape style is from 1857 and due to the father-son Landscape Architects, Jan David Zocher and Louis Paul Zocher. In 1949 a group of 20 leading flower bulb growers and exporters came up with the plan to use the estate to exhibit spring-flowering bulbs, signaling the birth of Keukenhof as a spring park.