“April showers bring May flowers,” or so the saying goes. But Rhode Islanders don’t need to wait until May to enjoy colorful, sweet-scented blooms, for April is the time of the tulips.
Wicked Tulips Flower Farm dedicates itself to the celebration of this flower. With two locations in Rhode Island (Exeter and Johnston) and one in Connecticut (Preston), they grow about 1.5 million tulips and host the largest U-pick tulip events in New England.
The farm is owned by Keriann and Jeroen Koeman. “We started with a tulip U-pick in 2009 in Virginia, and in 2016 we decided to come to New England because we started a family and my wife’s family is from Massachusetts,” Jeroen Koeman says. “We found land in Rhode Island, and we wanted to make our U-pick experience a bigger enterprise, so going to an area where there are more people is an easier way to make more people look at your flowers.”
The relocation of their farm business from rural Central Virginia to densely populated New England was not only essential to grow their business but to also grow happiness. Jeroen Koeman, who comes from a Dutch family of tulip farmers, wanted his flowers to brighten someone’s day. “I worked all my life in large-scale flower production, selling flowers to grocery stores and whatnot nationwide. When I was working for other businesses, I always told myself ‘When I start my own business, I really want to make people happy with flowers.’ When you are working in a mass market industry, you do not feel that. You only have buyers.” Achieving his dream of running his own flower farm shifts the capitalist idea of flowers as products and numbers to the idea of flowers as smiles, laughs, and happiness.
Tulips were always meant for Koeman. Not only were they “in [his] blood,” but he also notices that “tulips are being loved a lot in the world, maybe much more than any other flower. Tulips are quite magical how they attract all these people.”
Part of the attraction is the astounding variety of tulips. “We grow hundreds of different bulb varieties, and every year about thirty percent of the varieties are new,” Koeman explains. Some are even new to him. Tulips come in all different colors except for blue and black (though Queen of the Night tulip is very, very dark) and they can be small like crocuses to giant blossoms almost thirty inches tall. “That is definitely one of the things we are excited about at Wicked Tulips, to show that the variety of the tulips is wide and there are so many unique, never-seen-before varieties, at least to most of the public. There are a lot of comments like ‘this can’t be a tulip!’” But at Wicked Tulips Flower Farm, a farm dedicated solely to tulips, the answer to that is oh, yes, it can.
The hundreds of varieties they grow each year at the farm is only a small percentage of the species. “I believe there’s over three thousand varieties,” estimates Leah, part of the tulip team at the farm. She helps Koeman plant the bulbs in the fall, planning out how all the varieties should fit together to be appealing. “We look to get unique tulips and try to figure out how to space out the color. Even though it’s kind of a short spring season, there is, just like other flowers, early-blooming tulips, mid-blooming tulips, late-blooming tulips, so you have to take that into account as well when you’re planting them.” It’s a big puzzle: “the colors, the variety, the types of tulips, meaning the very traditional ones that you can think of, and then parrot tulips and lily-shaped tulips and the bigger French tulips. We want to have a nice variety of those to create a “wow” for our eyes,” says Leah. When spring arrives and the tulips bloom, all that effort is worth it.
There is some overlap of tulip types at the different farms, but each location offers a different experience or “aesthetic,” Leah describes. Each farm works with different types of land and different focal points in view in the tulip fields. The Preston, Connecticut farm is the largest, but even the smaller Johnston farm still grows over a half million tulips. The Johnston farm is also the original Rhode Island location, and that site has barns and silo structures in the background that many people gravitate towards for farm-aesthetic photo opportunities.
Because of their precision planting, the Koemans don’t like to use the word “peak” to describe the tulip blooming times. “If you come early, the late varieties are not blooming yet, so you see some green, but the early tulips are all beautiful. But then you come late, the early tulips will be all picked over and the lates are beautiful,” Jeroen Koeman clarifies. “The truth is that anytime we are open is the best time.” Mid-April to mid-May is usually when the tulips are in bloom, but as with all natural production, Mother Nature has the last say, so it is best to check their website and social media for open days and tickets. This year, the estimated opening dates are April 10-24 for the Exeter location, April 29-May 13 for the Johnston farm, and April 25-May 10 for the Preston site.
Each ticket includes ten stems for U-pick customers, and additional tulips can be purchased for an extra dollar per stem for those interested in making show-stopper flower arrangements. But what looks best on the kitchen table arrangement is really personal choice. “I think it is a very personal thing [flower design],” Koeman muses. “Some people like blue irises with their tulips. Personally, I am not mixing tulips with other flowers. I like my tulips just by themselves.” There is no wrong way to make a gorgeous bouquet.
Customers should also look for special ticketed events at each of the locations, like yoga in the tulip fields on the weekends, Keriann Koeman’s movement classes, and the Books in Bloom events, a book-club style happening with Rhode Island book influencer Reading with Robin. “We provide an opportunity for families and for everyone to connect to nature and also to connect to themselves and to friends, family, and strangers around them,” Koeman affirms. “Connection is something that really happens at our farm, and it’s an amazing thing to see and experience. There’s just a very happy, community-type atmosphere.” If traipsing through the tulip fields doesn’t bring a smile to your face, then surely fostering connection with loved ones and new friends will.
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