On Saturday, January 17, Amsterdam did what Amsterdam does best: it turned a public square into a shared moment. National Tulip Day landed on Museumplein, and by early afternoon, thousands of people were lining up to pick their own bunch from a temporary garden filled with 200,000 tulips.
National Tulip Day Turns Museumplein Into a Giant Picking Garden
It always feels like the weather improves when tulips appear. Just like every year, the weather was splendid at Museumplein. The sun shone brightly, and all the cold, snow, and icy rain of the past few weeks had vanished. Is that what tulips do as heralds of spring? You'd like to think so.
The event, organized by the Dutch tulip sector, marks the official kick-off of the Dutch tulip season and has been on the calendar for years, held on the third Saturday in January. Dutch tulip growers create the garden, open it at 1 PM, and invite everyone in for free entry and 10 free stems of tulips with their bulbs.
The theme for 2026 is United in Bloom! and emphasizes how tulips connect, evoke emotions, and speak a language that everyone understands. This sense of solidarity is felt every Tulip Day, also this year.
A Queue Worth Waiting For
If you’ve ever wondered how much patience people have for flowers, this is your answer. The queue is part of the ritual: a slow shuffle forward, plenty of chatting, and a steady build-up of anticipation. The mood among the waiting crowd, however, was as upbeat, and once inside, the pace changes instantly from waiting to choosing.
Inside the picking garden, people do the same thing in a hundred different ways: they build a bunch that feels personal. Red, white, purple, yellow, mixed, monochrome, tight, loose, tall, short. So much to choose from! And yes, the phones come out immediately. Lots of selfies and photos – the kind of images that travel fast and keep the tulip story circulating long after the last stem is picked. Insta, Facebook, and TikTok must be full of tulip pictures and reels by now.
Because this is Amsterdam, the crowd doesn’t come from one place. You hear Spanish, English, German, Arabic, Dutch – a cacophony of languages. National Tulip Day has become a tulip promotion event that not only speaks to locals but also to visitors who want a real Amsterdam story they can take home.
There’s also a very practical after-effect: you keep spotting fresh bunches around the city for the rest of the day. People walk out of Museumplein and into Amsterdam with tulips in hand, turning trams, sidewalks, and cafés into moving, unofficial showcases.
Why Amsterdam & Museumplein Works So Well
Museumplein, right in the heart of the Dutch capital Amsterdam, is doing half the marketing without saying a word. On one side, you’ve got the Rijksmuseum, on the other, the Concertgebouw, and nearby, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum. That iconic backdrop is also a reason the event ‘goes global’ so easily: the setting is instantly recognizable, even in a quick scroll through social media.
From a brand perspective, it’s smart: tulips in the heart of the city, framed by world-famous cultural landmarks, presented as open, generous, and accessible. That combination reinforces the Netherlands as a flower country in a way that feels effortless. Soon, all the tulip gardens in the Dutch bulb region (the famous 'Bollenstreek') will open up again, such as Keukenhof, where the splendor of the tulips (and many more bulbous flowers) can be enjoyed by millions.
What Florists Can Take From It
National Tulip Day isn’t a trade event, but it’s still useful for the floral industry. It reminds the public that tulip season is not a spring-only story. It starts early, it starts now, and it starts with excitement. That matters when you’re planning window displays, content calendars, and early-season assortment.
This year’s theme, ‘United in Bloom,’ reflects the reality on the ground: one garden, many languages, one shared product, and many people leaving with the same simple item, styled in their own way.
And if you’re looking for a clean takeaway: tulips still have pulling power. Put them in a place in your store where people can interact with them, and they do the rest. That’s exactly what happened on Museumplein.
All photos, unless otherwise mentioned, by Thursd.com. Feature image by @tuliptime.info.
