Flowers & Plants
I Love Tulips
Italy – From March to April, strolling through Italy’s Great Gardens, from the north to the south of the Bel Paese, you can immerse yourself in the fabulous world of tulips and discover important collections.
The first to bloom are the tulips of Beranu Froriu – Il Giardino di Turri in Turri, Sardinia. The collection was born at the behest of its owner, Michelangelo Galitzia, who, upon returning from a trip to the Netherlands where he visited the Keukenhof tulip fields, decided to set up the first experimental tulip field in Sardinia where the public could admire and purchase them. That was in 2018. Since then we no longer speak of an experimental field but of a real park divided into its own areas: one dedicated to display only and the other to harvesting.
Today in Sardinia, Spring is eagerly awaited by the public to watch the tulips bloom and to go home with a colorful vase of tulips. If the first edition in 2019 counted 150,000 Tulips and the one in 2022 recorded more than 350,000 in bloom among Buttercups, Daffodils, Irises and Muscari, the upcoming Spring will see about 500,000 bloom. Find out what’s new here by visiting Beranu Froriu – The Garden of Turri this spring.
Moving further north in the Veneto region of Italy, to Valeggio sul Mincio, it is the extraordinary blooming of more than a million tulips that will enter your heart. Every year the Parco Giardino Sigurtà ushers in the new season with its own amazing tulip bloom, Tulipanomania, one of the richest in Italy, second in Europe and awarded worldwide in 2019 by the World Tulip Society with the World Tulip Destination Worth Travelling For award, for excellence in the promotion and celebration of the tulip, and in 2022 the World Tulip Society a Canadian society, awarded Sigurtà Garden Park’s Tulipanomania as the Best Tulip Festival in the World for its consistently innovative flowering, numerous related initiatives, and because it is a floral event that year after year has been able to attract more and more visitors, with record attendance in April 2022.
The design of the flower beds, renewed annually, is the result of a thorough and constant study that ensures perfect color throughout Tulipanomania, and to the hundreds of varieties that bloom in free form in the woods. Among the novelties of the current edition is the presence of some rare varieties such as Acuminata, a species native to Turkey, Sigurtà’s Narcissus and the second realization of one of Count Sigurtà’s father’s paintings made entirely with tulips respecting the original color scheme of the painting. Sigurtà Garden Park awaits you with its Tulipanomania from March to early May.
In Trentino, in the Levico Spa Park, the flowering of more than 50,000 tulips sown scatteringly in the meadows begins in the first half of April
of the park. More than 100 varieties with different shades of color are in bloom along with more than 50,000 bulbs.
This amazing blooming is celebrated in the now customary event entitled Tulipomania. On Friday, April 14, Saturday, April 15 and Sunday, April 16, stories, botanical-historical information, cultivation notes and workshops for adults and children will enliven the Park.
In Piedmont in the small village of Pralormo, famous is the tulip bloom in the park of Pralormo Castle, designed in the 19th century by court architect Xavier Kurten, creator of the most important English-style parks of the Savoy residences. Throughout the month of April, strolling through the park one can admire more than 100,000 tulips and daffodils in bloom, celebrated in the long-awaited event of Messer Tulipano. Now in its XXIII edition, the Piedmontese event is the brainchild of Consolata di Pralormo, owner of the ancient manor house, who, upon returning from a trip to Holland in 1999, bewitched by the sinuosity of this flower, decided to organize an event to celebrate it. Thus was born Messer Tulipano the event that has enlivened the castle grounds every April since spring 2000. Each edition is characterized by a new planting, completely renewed in variety and design-color. The planting, which takes place in late autumn involving 10 people for more than 10 days, features some rare and unknown varieties to the Italian public but also varieties chosen to illustrate the history of the tulip. Today The Castle of Parlormo and Messer Tulip have been included in the world circuit of tulip gardens selected by the World Tulip Society.
The date is April 1 to May 1, 2023.
Finally, on the Piedmont shore of Lake Maggiore, between Intra and Pallanza, in the Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens, Spring has been heralded by the blooming of more than 80,000 bulbous plants since 1957. From year to year this floral event gives tourists new color perspectives, expertly created by the expert gardeners working in the park. Undoubtedly the main attraction of the event is the Tulip Labyrinth, a meandering path of about 400 meters in which tourists are immersed in an unparalleled atmosphere created by enticing hues and shades. In addition to the brilliant colors of the tulips, it will also be possible to admire the collection of hyacinths, a generous bloom of Camellias, Magnolias, Rhododendrons, Daffodils, Violets and … a chromatic blue carpet of flowering Muscari. We look forward to seeing you at the Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens, April 8-23, 2023, with the Bulb Festival.
