HOLLAND, Mich. — When you work in news, you often find stories just by listening. In Holland, nothing is louder than talk of the tulips.
“Why did you choose to make a pitstop here in Holland on your way back?" FOX 17 asked a couple traveling home to Pennsylvania through Michigan.
"Because of the tulips, of course," replied Carol Buchanan.
Carol and her husband, Don, were far from the only people checking out tulips at the popular Window on the Waterfront park.
Pat Sterling, who's lived in Holland for three years, said, “They’re wonderful. We always look forward to it.”
The bulbs and their beauty, though, are just part of the conversation.
“One of the people here, we talked to them and they said there might not be many blooming by the time the festival come because they're all blooming right now," said Don Buchanan.
Pat Sterling added her friends are "worried that it's going to be a stem festival. That's what's happened before."
Maybe those fears are all for nothing.
“I'm not stressed about it, so the visitors shouldn't be either," said Gwen Auwerda who's in her 14th year as the Tulip Time executive director.
She said they had a team of about 200 volunteers planting 550,000 tulips across town in October. They are always prepared for unpredictable weather.
“We plant early, mid and late tulips so there’s always some color," said Auwerda.
The exception would be Tulip Time 2012, now infamously known as Stem Fest.
Some feel this mid-April mosaic in Holland is setting the scene for a sequel.
Auwerda has a message for anyone with that belief.
“There is no Stem Fest happening this year," she promised. "When we had Stem Fest in 2012, we had full tulip beds blooming in the middle of March. That did not happen this year.”
They don't just battle the weather. Wildlife can present another problem.
“So, we have deer and squirrels that really like to eat tulip bulbs, which is why we fence all this in in the fall when we plant them," said Auwerda. "But somehow, the deer continue to get under the fence and this field behind me got half eaten.”
A member of the city's parks department said that specific patch will be tilled before the festival and replaced with fresh dirt instead of tulips.
However, if everything continues to look the way it did Friday, there will be no shortage of spots to snap your pictures.
Tulip Time 2024 runs from May 4- 12. You can find all the details by visiting the festival's website.
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