2014/05/11

Canadian Tulip Festival - Blast of colours!

One of the things I have been looking forward to since I moved to Ottawa is the Canadian Tulip Festival.  It is apparently the largest tulip festival in the world and symbolizes the friendship between Netherlands and Canada (especially since WWII).  Tulips are also Ottawa's official flower, so it makes sense for National Capital Commission (NCC) to put a lot of effort into this festival.  There are 30 flower beds at Commissioners Park, which consists of 60 different varieties of tulips and almost 300,000 plants in total!  For more information, please visit the main website - http://tulipfestival.ca/site/home/en.

2014-05-11-DSCN0076
One of the main information boards about the establishment of the festival.

2014-05-11-DSCN0074
I would say only about a quarter to a third of the tulips are in flower, and there are probably more visitors than flowers this afternoon!  Nonetheless, the current amount of tulips is already quite impressive, and I can't wait to come again when flowering is at its peak.

2014-05-11-P5114106
More people.

Now onto the flowers!  It's nice to see so many people interested in flowering plants, although I wish more people pay attention to the equally beautiful native plants that are flowering in nearby forests, as well as the animals associated with them (e.g., the pollinators), but I am probably highly biased.  Now, I did not remember any of the varieties that I photographed, so forgive me and just enjoy the blast of beautiful colours.

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival
My favourite variety.

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

Ottawa Tulip Festival

After photographing the tulips, it got kind of repetitive, so I decided to take photos of people and other photographers.

Canoers on Dow's Lake
On the other side of Dow's Lake (or even on the lake itself), it's probably very quiet and peaceful compare to where I was standing with screaming children and annoying adults from time to time.

Photographer at Tulip Festival
With smartphones, everyone is a photographer nowadays.

2014-05-11-P5114138

Photographer at Tulip Festival
Curious to what images other photographers have captured.

Photographers at Tulip Festival
Not one but two photographers.

Couple at Tulip Festival
For some reason, one of my favourite shots of the day.  They seem like a nice couple.

Quite a lovely day today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures. Would you say the weekend of 5/17 would be the peak bloom time for the tulips?

PSYL said...

Thanks.

This is my first time attending this event, so I am not sure when peak bloom will be. But given the poor weather forecast this week, I would say go as soon as the weather turns nice.

You can also see other people's photo albums at the festival main Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/CanadianTulipFestival, which may give you some idea of when the varieties are flowering.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...