On the finish of March and the start of April a pleasant factor occurs in Istanbul: thousands and thousands of tulips seem In each out there area: parks, roadsides, site visitors roundabouts and plant pots. April is synonymous with tulips, a flower which many affiliate with the Netherlands however is definitely an emblem of town.
Annually, someplace within the area of 13 million tulips are planted to have a good time the start of Spring. This yr It has been unseasonably heat, and officers have resorted to tipping icy-cold water onto the blooms attempting to push their approach up via the soil earlier than the allotted time.
Tulips had been delivered to Turkey from the wilderness of the Asian steppes within the sixteenth century, and Turks fell arduous and quick for the intense, inverted bell-shaped flowers. In the course of the Tulip Interval, essentially the most rich of Ottoman historical past, sure tulip varieties had been purchased and bought for staggering sums and there have been greater than 1800 tulip species in circulation.
From Istanbul, tulips made their approach overground to the Netherlands. Tulip insanity caught maintain there, too, and the intense flowers shortly grew to become a serious business.
