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TOP STORY: Wicked Tulips in need of a home
It’s clear – Rhode Islanders love Wicked Tulips – and are eager to help. We hope that this Top Story of the week will help them find their 2nd farm. Go, Wicked Tulips! And please stay in Rhode island.
Help us find a 2nd location so we can make more people happy!
Jeroen & Keriann, owners of Wicked Tulips had the most successful first years at their farm in Johnston. But! Their tulip farm needed to lay fallow for 1-2 years to regain its nutrients, so they went looking for a second location in Rhode Island to plant for the 2020 season. They found their 2nd home at Schartner Farms. This year they issued their reservation system again – just a few days ago – for tulip picking times. We’ll let them tell you what happened from here –
“When we launched our
pre-season ticket sale of Any Day tickets on Sunday, three thousand ticket sold
in less than two hours. We are truly sorry if you missed out on these
tickets. Luckily all is not lost, you can still purchase
general admission tickets, when they go on sale a few days before we open
in late April – we do not know when we will open yet.
We can only sell so many tickets to keep the u-pick enjoyable for
everyone and because of the myriad of safety issues that come up with
overcrowding- accidents from backed up traffic, parking lot safety issues for
our visitors and our staff, not to mention a tulip field packed with
people with little room to move around is not pleasant.
This just strengthens our resolve to find either a bigger venue or open a 2nd
location! For those of you who know us, you know that we feel
terrible when we have to say no to anyone who wants to visit. When we get
the emails begging for tickets it breaks our hearts.
Here’s how you can help. We are looking for a farm to lease long
term or buy in Rhode Island, Eastern Connecticut or possibly Massachusetts. It
would need the following:
- minimum of 25 plowable acres but we are very open to 50 or more
- good soil for tulips – drains well, mostly flat, the less rocks the better
So, if you know
of farmland which is available for long term lease or sale that
meets these basic requirements, let us know!
Thanks for taking the time to read this and we appreciate all your support.
Jeroen & Keriann
NEW
LOCATION for 2020
Find us at Schartner Farm
1 Arnold Place
Exeter, RI
For more info go to: https://wickedtulips.com
About Jeroen amd Keriann – a blooming husband-and-wife team
Their first blooming business was called EcoTulips. It began in 2009 when Keriann, a self-described “green girl” met Jeroen Koeman, who hailed from a Dutch family of tulip growers. They fell in love, got married, and started EcoTulips LLC. In September 2015, they moved from Central Virginia to Rhode Island and started their new endeavor Wicked Tulips Flower Farm. In 2018, the couple decided to simplify things and combine EcoTulips.com with Wicked Tulips Flower Farm. They now sell all their products under the same brand-name Wicked Tulips.
Keriann is a native New Englander, so Rhode Island’s proximity to family combined with the colder climate made it perfect for starting a tulip farm here in the States – a long time dream of Jeroen’s.
As they did in Virginia, the couple opens their farm to visitors every spring. They started by hand planting approx. 60,000 tulips and now plant 800,000 with a tractor. They host the only U-pick Tulip Event in New England! You can tiptoe through acres of tulips and experience the sights, sounds and smells of spring. Bring home a fresh picked bouquet of the most amazing tulips you have ever seen.
