Projects

Flower Festival, Garden Tourism, Media, Projects /

Immersion Garden just got bigger and better

For the second edition of the Immersion Garden at the world’s oldest tulip festival, Tulip Time in Holland, MI, IGMPR introduced the Delftware floral benches with patterns designed by Heinen Delfts Blauw and Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk. Another great addition were over 30 large interpretation displays with artwork visuals collected from museums all over the world, explaining the Journey of the Tulip – how it travelled from East to West – , and tulip art and culture in the Netherlands. During 8 days we received thousands of visitors each day and had sold-out weekends and rave reviews. We let the images and video’s speak for itself!

Obtained from social media
Flower Festival, Projects /

New Immersive Blooming Object for Parco Sigurtà

In March 2023, Parco Sigurtà added another painting of its founder Enzo Sigurtà to its collection of Immersive Blooming Objects created by IGMPR. With specifically forced tulips and hyacinths the installation was a colourful and fragrant surprise for visitors this early in the season.

Flower Bulbs, Horticulture, Projects /

The World’s Largest Off-Season Tulip Show

During the October National Holiday Season, Oriental International Shanghai Floriculture Industry Development ltd (‘OISF’), launched the world’s largest off-season tulip festival in Miao Village on Chongming Island, Shanghai. Close to 1.8 million tulips were forced exactly into bloom for China’s most important holiday season, which lasts from 1 to 8 October.

Preparations for this big event already started last year, with the production and sourcing planning from different partners and suppliers in China, Netherlands and New Zealand. “We had to find solutions against all seasons and odds” says Ms Coco Yang, general manager of OISF. In the climate in Shanghai, with its hot and humid summers, it is impossible to plant tulip bulbs in the open landscape. The bulbs need a cool dormancy period of 3 to 4 months to develop a strong root bases and high-quality flowers. With the support of local and overseas partners we managed to import 1.8 million tulip bulbs from New Zealand and plant them on pots in June and store them in cooling rooms until mid-September. During 10 days about 50 trucks arrived at Chongming Island with the pre-rooted tulips from different locations across China. There over 400 workers planted the tulips into the landscape of the beautiful Zhongzhong Forest in Miao Town.

IGMPR has been supporting OISF in this project from the very beginning in the planning, sourcing, quality control and project management. ‘The use of pre-rooted tulips, allows tulip gardens and festivals to exactly time the blossom moment and extend the operation period. This is the first time ever, it has been done on such a massive scale, and we were honored and proud to work on this project since last year, says project lead Ibo Gülsen. Despite the world-wide pandemic and challenges in supply chains and travel restrictions, we managed to stay on track and achieve a magnificent result, thanks to OISF and all partners that were involved.”

Although visitation is capped at 1.000 visitors at any moment in the park due to COVID-19 regulations, over 5.000 visitors visit the show on a daily basis, with peaks of even 10.000. The show is also a warm-up for the coming 10th edition of the China Flower Expo which will be held on Chongming Island from May 21- July 2 in 2021.

For this accomplishment the chairman of the World Tulip Society, Mr Michel Gauthier, presented via a video message the award for the ‘World’s Largest Off Season Tulip Show’: “This project has proven again that the tulip is truly an international flower that can bring pleasure and joy to people at any time and place in the world”.

Media, Projects /

Return of the Istanbul tulip

In cooperation with the World Tulip Society, the Consulate of the Netherlands in Istanbul, and many others, we returned the original Istanbul tulip to its birthplace.

On May 6 Consul General Bart van Bolhuis presented the tulip to mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who greatly appreciated the gift. The typical Istanbul tulip with its almond shape and pointy daggers, was cultivated in the 17th-18th century in the Ottoman gardens, and were described extensively in the Tulip Album of 1725. The earliest documented record in Europe of this tulip was in 1811, where the tulip arrived from the Orient and were planted in the royal gardens in Paris. Soon after it appeared in other places in Europe and was registered as tulipa cornuata and later acuminata. The acuminata is still grown on a very small scale by a specialised grower in the Netherlands, and its history was only known within a small community of garden and tulip connaisseurs. The event gained national attention in the media across Turkey.

Mr. Ibo Gülsen of IGMPR lead the project and worked closely with tulip specialists in Europe and Turkey to unravel the history of the Istanbul Tulip. Beautiful pictures of the tulip in the royal gardens were made with the support of Paleis Het Loo.

Media, Projects /

Tulip Festival 2020 opens in Dafeng Holland Flower Park

For the first time in 5 years IGMPR was not able to join the opening of the Tulip Festival in Dafeng Holland Flower Park, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Nevertheless we were glad our support in the preparations paid off with blooming tulips and activities. A special congratulatory speech was given by the Dutch Ambassador Wim Geerts and South-Holland’s Deputy vice-governor Adri Bom-Lemstra by video.

A report on the festival and the impact of COVID-19 on operations in the Dafeng Holland Flower Park was recently published by Flora Culture International.