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Jos Smit has been involved with bulbs from his youngest days and now works for JUB Holland, one of the Netherlands largest bulb producers.
JUB Holland is a family-owned bulb company uniting cultivation of high-quality flower bulbs, innovative breeding, inspiring retail concepts and large-scale landscape planting to bring vibrant colour and biodiversity to gardens and public spaces across Europe.
The top markets for JUB Holland are Netherlands, Germany and the UK. The family company exports flower bulbs with environmental certificates to 40 countries and actively participates in breeding activities for developing new varieties, as part of breeding company Remarkable. In addition, the bulb grower compiles special mixtures with extra nectar for bees and butterflies for local authority councils, organisations and garden centres to promote biodiversity and healthy nature.
The company was founded in 1910 and has a Royal warrant to supply tulip and other flower bulbs to the Dutch Royal Family.
Jos gave me a tour of some of JUB Holland’s impressive set up to get a flavour of the bulb growing region in the Netherlands.
A successful exporting industry
The amount of Dutch farmland devoted to the bulb industry has grown 21 per cent over the past 10 years and the industry now covers 28,000 hectares.
In 2022 more than seven billion bulbs were exported by Dutch growers, mostly tulips and lilies, worth around €1billion (£860m) in sales.
Trade organisation, Royal General Bulb Growers’ Association (KAVB) reports that since 2000, the cultivation acreage of tulips has grown by 36% to nearly 12,000 hectares in 2017.
Gallery: Tulip showcase at the Keukenhof >>>
Jos explains why the area around the coast and Lisse is perfect for bulb growing:
It is because of the soil and the climate, we have always a cold windy breeze from the sea, which is very good for the bulbs. And we have a calcareous soil, because they dug off 2 to 3 metres in the past and we have come to a very healthy soil for growing bulbs such as tulips and daffodils.
Read: New nature flower mix for Keukenhof (2024)
Keukenhof show gardens
The Keukenhof demands colour from opening at the end of March through to May and that is not always possible from tulips alone. Daffodils, crocus and other narcissi can do that for the garden beds at the visitor attraction.
JUB Holland has exhibited at the Keukenhof gardens since the beginning of the attraction in 1949 around 76 years ago.
Jos Smit says the bed is planted with 350 bulbs per square metres in two layers. The top layer is planted with crocus and then the second layer holds the tulips and the late allium bulbs.
The garden beds feature a new tulip called ‘Nightshade’ and a multi-flowering tulip called ‘Flaming Club,’ along with fritillaria and crocus.
This year, designer Carien van Boxtel created a concept inspired by the dramatic and asymmetrical floral still life of 17th-century painter Willem van Aelst.
The garden will create a colour display from the end of March to mid-May.
In 2024, the company created a special mix of bulbs and flowers for a permanent wildlife garden on-site. This is in contrast to the beds that are re-designed and dug up each year with new planting, as this garden remains in place from year-to-year.
A joint project of JUB Holland and Rijnbeek Perennials (Boskoop).
When to purchase and plant tulips?
Remember: tulip bulbs are best planted in autumn for spring flowering, so orders of tulip bulbs will not usually be dispatched until September at the earliest. That said, you can place your orders before September with many suppliers.
Warehouse and packing
Bulbs are kept in 18 cold storage areas to make sure that there are no climate impacts on the quality of the bulbs and to ensure they put all of their energy into producing flowers.
Over 80 million bulbs will be packaged and exported from the JUB Holland facilities in the Netherlands and sent across Europe and the UK.
Jos says:
Summer flowering bulbs make up about 10 per cent of exports, so spring flowering bulbs is a much bigger market.
Born and raised in the bulb region of the Netherlands, Jos has been working with tulips and bulbs all his life as his father was a bulb grower.
Gardens planted by JUB Holland
In recent years JUB Holland has turned to supplying large quantities of high quality bulbs in mixes to promote biodiversity and provide food for pollinators. These mixes, but also large collection of loose bulbs, are increasingly being used by local government, universities, private estates, garden designers, landscapers, and other professionals in public green spaces.
The Buglife approved mix is designed to provide continuous flowering from February through to June.
Examples of large scale planting by JUB Holland in the UK include in 2019, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London and a bulb valley. JUB Holland supplied and planted a mix of 200,000 bulbs in the public gardens developed in partnership with local voluntary groups and the conservation charity, Buglife.
Another inspiring example can be found in Northamptonshire, where the historic estate of Lamport Hall and Gardens has become a living showcase of a shared vision on thoughtful bulb planting. Mechanically planted by the JUB Holland UK team and Beechwood Industries Ltd, the flowering verge now evolves through four dazzling stages of colour, creating a rich visual journey from early spring into late bloom.
Interested in sourcing high-quality Dutch flower bulbs for your business?
Whether you’re active in landscape design, garden retail, distribution or public space management, JUB Holland offers tailored solutions across Europe and the UK.
For expert advice, availability and region-specific ordering, please get in touch with our specialists via www.jubholland.nl.
For smaller-scale, domestic customers, – JUB Holland’s bulbs can be found in selected garden centres and mail order companies across the UK and Europe.
More on Dutch bulb growing: Daffodils >>>
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