in recent days, my best friend Elise and I enjoyed some found time and took the opportunity to drive 90 minutes north of Grantham to the idyllic village of Sugar Hill. The main purpose of our little road trip was to check out what we had heard is one of the most scenic venues in the state of New Hampshire. This is particularly true during early to mid-June when the colorful lupines are at their annual flowering peak.    

By way of background, Sugar Hill is one of those small northern New Hampshire towns that probably looks and feels a lot today just as it did, say, 75 years ago. In fact, it is officially the newest incorporated town in NH having earned this status 60 years ago in 1962. Once a Victorian resort town, Sugar Hill is perhaps best known today as the home of Polly’s Pancake Parlor which has been serving up breakfast/brunch fare for over 80 years.

In early June, it’s the lupines that take center stage in Sugar Hill. For nearly 30 years the town has hosted the annual Sugar Hill Lupine Festival and Market however, like so many other events, it has been regrettably cancelled in recent years due to the ongoing pandemic. https://www.lupinefestival.com
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Nonetheless, the festival cancellation didn’t stop the annual return of the blue, purple, and pink lupines!

​Upon arriving in the village, it was not hard at all to spot the lupines which seemed to be popping up just about everywhere…along the road, between houses, etc.  However, the most stunning displays were in many of Sugar Hill’s open fields with the White Mountains themselves serving as a spectacular backdrop.  Here’s a photograph of a field of lupines we came across swaying back and forth as if they had been choreographed with a wide range of mountains including Mount Lafayette and Cannon Mountain, separated by Franconia Notch, in the near distance (Mount Washington was also in view but, as is often the case, was experiencing clouds covering the summit).  Painters with their palettes were a common sight as they captured the stunning lupine/mountain images on canvas.  

​In addition to multiple open fields of lupines, we noticed the flowers thriving in other parts of the village as well including behind the famous Harman’s Cheese and Country Store and on the grounds of St. Matthew’s Chapel, a quintessential New England white-steepled church on a hill.  While there was essentially no traffic or crowds for us to compete with in viewing the lupines, we did take note of visitors from both near and far – including international tourists - that chose to take in these special sights as evidenced by car license plates from Texas, Mississippi, Virginia and all six New England states.  We also learned that some visitors actually time their visits to the lupine fields to coincide with sunrise or sunset where the sunlight can dramatically alter the appearance, and beauty, of the lupines depending upon the time of day. You might want to consider a brief trip to enjoy the natural beauty for yourselves. 

​The GGC’s blog returns today but with a twist. The name is now  simply Flowers and Folklore with stories posted on a less regular schedule. I invite garden club members to write stories too and send them to me with pictures. Together we can keep the GGC blog going all year round. 

Today's  blog is about bollen, bollen, and meer bollen (Dutch for bulbs, bulbs, and more bulbs).  I joined the million and a half tourists who descended on the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The garden is open for only eight weeks each year which makes for quite a viewing frenzy.  If the tulips blossomed continuously every day of the year there, I believe that the total number of visitors to Keukenhof would be far fewer. There’s something about a deadline that gets people moving.
 
Unlike the usual visitors who take selfies and make sure they and their friends are in every picture with the tulips, to me it was all about the flowers. The design and theme of the garden are different each year to lure folks back again and again. Even visiting in one of the first weeks will be different from visiting near the end of the fleeting season.
 
More than 100 growers donate seven million bulbs including crocus, daffodils, and hyacinth plus 800 varieties of tulips. When I visited in late April, the crocus and daffodils were gone so the tulips were the stars of the show, sometimes edged with purple hyacinth to help the colors pop. 
 
I watched in horror as some gardeners were systematically picking all the still good looking, yellow tulip flowers in one area. Since tulips only bloom for around a week, the tulip bulbs are hand planted in the fall in layers like a parfait with the later bloomers are the bottom and earlier bloomers closer to the surface. That strategy isn’t enough to ensure continuous blooms, so when an area of flowers is about to fade, they remove them. Surprisingly, the swath of greenery contrasts beautifully with their colorful neighbors. It’s all part of the plan.
 
What do they do with those thousands of bulbs when the eight weeks are up? They simply throw them away. Those 100 growers benefit from their donations with the ability to advertise that theirs are Keukenhof bulbs.
 
The tulip industry is gigantic in the Netherlends. They are grown to sell as bulbs or as cut flowers. The cut flowers are picked before they blossom. The bulb flowers are “topped” after the flowers bloom. In Dutch it’s called “Tulpen Koppen” and is necessary to ensure that the bulbs get as much nourishment as possible. Below is a link to see what it looks like. Prepare yourself for a shock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5cef0JYSMU
 
Garden Club member Anke Clews is from the little town of Hengelo in the Netherlands near the German border. Anke and her family attended many tulip festival parades and events where they often bought strings of tulips and decorated the hood of their car with them.  These flowers came from the topped fields and thus had their moment to shine. When I visited Anke at her home in Grantham recently, I commented on the four gorgeous, red tulips in her front yard. Anke told me she doesn’t know where they came from. She didn’t plant them. Hmmm, I have lots of theories—all of them delightful. There is nothing like a little mystery—especially when it involves flowers. 

Anke's mystery tulip