Tulips are our new attraction

Rotorua's winter festival is over and the city has lost the Raggamuffin festival to Auckland - but now the city can celebrate its first Tulip Fest.

Tulip Fest Rotorua is the brainchild of the Inner City Focus Group which, working in conjunction with the Rotorua District Council, wants to promote the city's wonderful spring gardens which produce around 40,000 tulips each year.

Tulip Fest co-ordinator and Rotorua businesswoman Sabine Willemsen said the start of the festival would be weather dependent as tulips needed a number of decent frosts before blooming around mid-September, but would probably be the last week of September.

"We want to celebrate the beauty of what's already here in Rotorua and the tulips are very popular with our visitors every year in spring," Ms Willemsen said.

"While we look at doing new things all the time we tend to overlook what we already have here."

She said a range of events were in the planning stage, including guided tulip walks, guest speakers and a weekend market in Jean Batten Square.

"It will be a Dutch/Turkish market theme," she said. "The Dutch are always associated with tulips, but they are originally from Turkey so we want to do something with that."

She said buses were being arranged to help the less able bodied to enjoy the city's tulip gardens.

The council's Open Spaces Operations lead Garry Page said staff were planting approximately 40,000 tulips in preparation for the inaugural Tulip Fest.

Mr Page said tulip planting was concentrated in the city's premier floral display beds, mostly located within the inner city, Government Gardens and Kuirau Park.

"Planting is mainly mid-season tulip varieties that flower from the middle of September to mid-October. The main colours this year will be red, white, mauve, yellow and pink.

"Tulips usually have a two to three-week peak flowering life, so we've staggered the planting of different varieties to maximise the impact of flowering display over the mid-September to mid-October timeframe."

Mr Page said tulip displays would be complemented by the planting of other lower flowering and colour contrasting bedding plants to add to the effect. These will include pansies, stock and forget-me-nots.

"Rotorua's first tulip festival is a natural progression from the city's ever popular tulip planting displays and will add another element to our Inner City Revitalisation Strategy."

To get involved email theorangetable@hotmail.co.nz or brigitte.nelson@rdc.govt.nz. Stay updated with progress on the first Tulip Fest Rotorua on Facebook.