LEHI, Utah — Thanksgiving Point’s annual tulip festival is just around the corner, with over 350,000 new tulips planted to present a dazzling display of color.
It’s an annual tradition that attracts people by the hundreds of thousands.
“There must have been twenty thousand people here!” a pair of visitors remarked about past years. “Strollers and carts and everything.”
Lehi locals Scott Aaron and Doug Rawlins have counted themselves among the crowd at Ashton Gardens for years.
“We both use the grandparent pass that allows us to get all of the grandkids in [at each of the Thanksgiving Point facilities],” said Aaron.
But this time, the neighbors went for a sneak peak.
“I called him, I said hey! It’s time to go for a walk - snow’s over,” Rawlins said.
A visit to the gardens is more like a daily routine now for these two.
“Very serene,” Aaron said. “I can’t imagine the amount of work they put into it.”
Tony Latimer serves as Thanksgiving Point’s senior director of horticulture and he can hardly quantify it either,
“During this display - we’ll start planning for next year,” said Latimer. “We’ll see what tulips we like, what didn’t do as well, what combinations are performing really good.”
Latimer said they plant new tulips in the preceding fall, and this latest weather front had visitors concerned for the flowers.
“Some of them are kind of leaning because we’ve had quite a bit of wind just today,” Aaron said Thursday.
But it's actually the warm weather of weeks past that’s worried the groundskeepers.
“When it gets up in the high 70s and 80s, the tulips just move faster, and so they don’t stay in bloom quite as long,” Latimer said. “This is going to be one of the earliest years ever for our tulips to bloom.”
Latimer has worked 26 years here and he says the wet, cold weather will actually help the festival.
“It shouldn’t get cold enough to bother them at all, so they’ll be good,” added Latimer.
With ongoing issues of drought, it will look a little different this year for those with a keen eye.
“The one thing I’m sad about, because we’re trying to conserve water, is that the waterfall isn’t running,” Aaron said. “But that makes sense.”
So the locals are grateful for the precipitation.
“We’re desperate for it and that’s what this location thrives on,” said Aaron.
They hope from the Grand Allée to the Dutch Fields to the Fragrance Garden, the 50-acre garden stays alive and well in the weeks ahead.
“It looks great now, and in the next couple weeks, it’ll look good,” said Latimer. “So, now’s a good time to come.”
Thanksgiving Point's Tulip Festival starts Monday, April 6 and runs for six weeks, until May 16. You can find information about tickets on their website here.
