I'm Ruined!: Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Let this serve as a warning, this entry in my travel blog is filled with pictures of flowers. So many flowers, it just may make you sneeze just thinking about it.

This trip to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was in April 2017. The festival in 2018 with be the whole month of April. Let this serve as ample time to plan your trip here. You can find yourself here with an hour drive north from Seattle.

If you have ever visited the Netherlands or just flown over it on a European trip, this valley could bring back memories with seas of colourful flowers for miles.

A must stop on your tour should be to RoozenGaarde. I am doing a copy and paste of relevant info right from the Roozengaarde site for easy reference here:

RoozenGaarde (www.Tulips.com) is a division of Washington Bulb Company Inc., the largest flower bulb grower in North America with more than 1000 acres of tulip, daffodil, and iris fields located in the Skagit Valley. In addition to the vast fields of flowers, we also grow tulips and lilies year round in our 15 acres of greenhouses.

Planted in the display garden are 90+ varieties of tulips and over 150 flower bulb varieties in total. Included are tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, muscari and other specialty flowers.

RoozenGaarde is located at 15867 Beaver Marsh Rd, Mount Vernon, WA
Current hours are 9am - 6pm Monday through Saturday and 11am - 4pm on Sundays.
RoozenGaarde IS OPEN YEAR ROUND.

Admission is $7 per person and $6 for those with military ID. Children 5 and under are FREE.

Admission for the garden is only charged during the spring bloom period. Visitors are welcome to stroll the garden free of charge outside of this period.

Parking:

We provide access for parking at many of our tulip field locations. This parking is weather permitting. Parking is FREE with a RoozenGaarde admission ticket purchased on the same day. Parking is $7 without an admission ticket, BUT this ticket can also be used for a single admission to our display garden on the day of purchase. Both admission and parking tickets are only valid on the day of purchase.

On the way to RoozenGaarde you will see the landscape light up with fields and fields colour. As you park you will see flowers in planters, then as you enter the queue to get inside and pay admission, you will be amongst the flowers in displays winding your way there.

You can check the Bloom Map to get updated conditions and peak blooming times.

There is a gift shop with all kinds of goodies, including cut flowers.

On the inside of the gate, there are undulating varieties and colours in the different beds forming patterns.

This one looks like pink gems floating in the clouds.

Some are surrounding carpets of one variety.

Some surround interesting, mature trees.

....Or landscape features.

In one view there is a backdrop of mountains in the distance.

Other designs surround groomed shrubbery.

The photographer in you will relish at the choices for close-ups, as well.

Driving around you will see fields like this and you can stop to walk around and take pictures. Be sure to get a current map annually, there is some crop rotation.