Breda celebrates spring: Do you also feel so happy in the spring with all those Breda flower fields? In one spot, there are bright, vibrant colours, and just a street away, there are soft pastel shades. Every year, more of these Keukenhof-worthy flower beds appear. We wanted to know more about this and spoke with Anton Lips, the man behind the Breda flower bulb fields.
Anton Lips
Anton Lips is the manager of public space at the municipality of Breda and 'oversees' the 1300 ha. of green space in and around the city. As the son of a gardener, he was instilled with a love for nature from a young age. However, he took his father's advice to heart that he should 'earn his living not with his back but with his mouth.' Anton studied landscape architecture and since 2012, he has been the manager of public greenery in Breda. He directs, conceptualises, manages, and consults. And as he himself says, "I talk all day long."
Extending the blooming season
In the past, Breda mainly had flower beds with one type of tulips or daffodils. A few years ago, the city switched to carefully selected mixtures. This has several advantages. You can of course vary infinitely in colour palette, but also in blooming season. While one type of flower may bloom for a few weeks, by using a mixture of early and late bloomers, you can significantly extend the blooming period of the bed. “We announce spring in February with the early bloomers, and we have bulbs in bloom until May,” says Anton Lips.
A nice example of a mixture chosen for extension is the Valkenberg, where the orange Princess Irene tulip has been blooming on King's Day for years. By mixing it with two other orange tulips, the flower bed now blooms for a much longer period.
Biodiversity
A longer flowering period is also good for biodiversity. Especially bees benefit from the early bloomers, as there are still few other flowers at that time.
Painting with nature
Anton Lips calls the development of mixtures with a beautiful colour palette “painting with nature.” For the 5.5 km along the inner city canals, he even enlisted a designer.
“In the coming years, we will make the entire inner canal suitable for runners and walkers,” he explains. “A walking path with a double row of trees and flowers. 5.5 kilometres of the same thing will naturally get boring. That’s why we had special mixtures developed for this route with strong standard species, supplemented with extra colours. Each segment, between two bridges, will have its own extra colour. With a nod to Breda's royal Nassau history, these are gold, white, blue, and orange. This way, each stretch of the canal will remain surprising.”
Herbs
You know it well from your own garden. With spent bulbs, it doesn't get any prettier. The foliage needs to be allowed to die back peacefully to nourish the bulb for the next year, but it looks quite messy. For about three years now, Breda has been combining bulbs with herbs and wildflowers in many places. These bloom after the bulbs and can remain until October when the mower comes through. Relatively low maintenance, and everything returns in the following spring. You can find this combination, for example, on Lunetstraat, Vincent van Goghstraat, and the access roads.
Pioneer
“Breda is a pioneer in this respect compared to most other cities,” says Anton Lips. “Many cities are still cutting back on public green spaces. Fortunately, that's not the case in Breda anymore. For the coming years, we've agreed to allocate budget every year to plant about 2000 m2 of new bulbs. The amount of beds is therefore growing significantly each year.”
Meanwhile, every year, dozens of species and hundreds of variants are emerging in Breda.
General Maczektulp
On King's Day, we have orange tulips, the inner gardens bloom in royal colours, and last year, for the 75th anniversary of liberation, the General Maczek tulip bloomed at the Polish monuments in Breda. Flower beds with a Breda twist. The Maczek tulip, named in 2013, has Polish colours: red with a white edge.
Bulbs in your neighbourhood?
The spring bloomers are popular among the residents of Breda. Every spring, the municipality receives requests from residents who would also like to have a small field of bulbs in their neighbourhood. The municipality sees this as a wonderful opportunity for collaboration, the so-called neighbourhood deals. Anton Lips: “The bulbs are very suitable for increasing residents' involvement in public spaces. We let them, including the children, help with planting. This way, they feel like co-owners, and a sense of community emerges.”
Would you like to have a lovely bulb field with your neighbours or get involved in public greenery in another way? Then visit www.breda.nl/wijkdeal
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