tip toeing through the tulips.......

the staff all walk around in traditional dress and big wooden clogs....

rows and rows of colours and tulips galore.....

replica Dutch windmills - you would think you were in Holland.....

I just love, love, love these parrot tulips - so beautiful and fresh....

ranunculus are another favorite of mine, the colours were gorgeous and spring like, also hiding some little gnome friends.....

One of my favorite flowers - if not my favorite is the tulip.

I first learnt floristry while working in London traveling, and I had the joy of working with the best tulips of all - from Holland.

We would get buckets and buckets of them, I would get to work with the loveliest colour range and varieties available.

But you don't have to live in Holland for the best tulips, we have our own Tulip festival in our own backyard (that's if you are from Melbourne of course) at Tesselaar in Silvan.

The festival runs to the 12-13th October, and there is over 100 different varieties of Tulips on show - with live entertainment, yummy food and a good coffee!

My fav tulip would have to be the Parrot tulip. The texture in the petals are so amazing and they are so top heavy they have a gracious fall about them.

So don't ever throw your tulips out when they hang over the vase, they are only finished when the petals go see through, or they fall from the stem. The bending of the stem is due being so top heavy, tulips continue to grow in the water, so you need to continually cut them to stay strong and straight.....personally I like them hanging over the edge of the vase - they are such drama queens!!