Keukenhof in Lisse, the Netherlands

If you’ve been around gardening for a few years, it’s likely that the word ‘Keukenhof’ involuntarily sets off a spectrum explosion in your head. Keukenhof is the name of a garden just outside of Amsterdam, which exists for no other reason than to show off the wares of Dutch bulb growers. It’s a floral spectacle unmatched anywhere in the world, in which more than seven million bulbs are planted each year. In a nice bit of underselling, the name means ‘kitchen garden’, which this site once was, for a nearby castle.

There are great sheets of tulips in every direction – huge blocks and waves that disappear off into the soft, misty light that so often hangs over this region. The only colour that tulips don’t do is blue, and this is amply supplied by solid rugs of deep blue grape hyacinths. So every colour you know, or can imagine, is here in abundance.

Keukenhof is undeniably stupendous. But it’s not without its sensitivity, or genius. Everywhere you look there is evidenceof such a deep knowledge and love of the plants being used. In addition to the obvious partnering of, say, blocks of yellow tulips over carpets of navy, there are beds in which heights of various tulips are used in such a way that one colour just hovers above another of complementary or harmonious hue, and moments in which colour is used with such subtlety that you see these ‘look-at-me’ plants in a whole new way.

And among all this colour brilliance there are huge areas of complex bulb mixes, all flowering simultaneously, and including rarities in such numbers that they induce serious plant envy. There are beds in which crown imperial fritillaries stand tall above a range of perfectly colour- and height-matched tulips, which themselves overlook daffodils, all undercarpeted with hyacinths, which are further underplanted with anemones and grape hyacinths. I didn’t think it was possible to pack in that many different bulbs per square metre, and to have each included species or form gain from the visual teamwork.

But behind all that, unnoticed, is to me one of the keys to success of this truly great achievement: the immense beech trees among which the bulbs are planted. At tulip time, the beeches are just coming into leaf, so the brilliant colouring of the tulips appears suspended in a haze of lime green of incredible, vivacious delicacy. I’m holding my breath, just imagining it.