Keukenhof to bring spring greetings to Germany in 2011

Keukenhof to bring spring greetings to Germany in 2011

LISSE – In 2011, Keukenhof will bring its first spring greetings to Germany. The international flower exhibition has chosen ‘Germany: Land of Poets and Philosophers’ as its central theme for next year. This is not just a tribute to our most important export market for bulbs and flowers, but also to our many tens of thousands of visitors from Germany. Statistically speaking, Germany is the largest individual country of origin of the approximately 800,000 visitors welcomed to Keukenhof each year. Around 20% of these come from the east.

We will be keeping to our tradition of referring to the theme throughout the park, sometimes subtly and sometimes overwhelmingly, for example in an enormous mosaic of flowers. Examples of this from previous years include representations of Rembrandt van Rijn, Pippi Longstocking, a Chinese dragon, New York’s Statue of Liberty and the St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, all created using tens of thousands of flowering bulbs.

The choice for Germany is only logical, having already featured Sweden, China, the United States and Russia as central themes. “Germany is pre-eminently the country of poets and philosophers. German history has not only been shaped by politics, but more particularly by the social sciences. Expressing this in flowers will be a wonderful challenge for us.”

In 2011, Keukenhof will be open from 24 March to 20 May.