Tulips: From Ottoman Gardens to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival
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Few flowers carry as much history in their petals as the tulip. What most people think of as a quintessentially Dutch flower actually has a much older, much more colourful backstory — one that runs through the gardens of the Ottoman Empire long before it ever reached a Dutch canal.
The Turkish History
Tulips are originally native to Central Asia, but it was in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in Turkey, where the flower was first cultivated seriously and elevated to something close to a national obsession. The very word "tulip" is believed to come from the Turkish word for turban, a nod to the flower's shape.
By the 16th century, tulips were a fixture of Ottoman court life, cultivated extensively in the gardens of Topkapi Palace and celebrated in poetry and art. This appreciation reached its peak in the early 18th century, during a period so closely tied to the flower that it's still known today as the "Tulip Era" (Lale Devri) — a time of relative peace, prosperity, and lavish garden culture in the Ottoman capital, with tulip motifs appearing everywhere from textiles to architecture.
The Dutch History
Tulips made their way to Western Europe in the mid-16th century, arriving in the Netherlands via botanists and traders with connections to the Ottoman Empire. The Dutch climate turned out to be remarkably well suited to growing them, and by the early 1600s tulip cultivation had taken off across the country.
This is where the story takes its most famous turn: Tulip Mania. In the 1630s, tulip bulbs — particularly rare, striped varieties — became the subject of frenzied speculation, with prices for single bulbs at one point reportedly exceeding the cost of a house. The bubble collapsed dramatically in 1637, and Tulip Mania is now widely cited as one of the earliest recorded examples of a speculative market bubble. Long after the mania faded, the tulip remained deeply embedded in Dutch culture, and the Netherlands is still the world's largest producer and exporter of tulip bulbs today.
The Tesselaar Tulip Festival
You don't need to travel to Istanbul or Amsterdam to see that history in bloom — the Dandenong Ranges, just outside Melbourne, hosts one of the finest tulip displays in the Southern Hemisphere every spring at the Tesselaar Tulip Festival in Silvan.
Rows upon rows of tulips in every colour imaginable stretch across the farm's fields each September and October, drawing photographers, families, and flower lovers from across the state. It's one of my favourite spring shoots — the sheer density of colour, combined with the rolling hills of the Dandenongs in the background, makes for some genuinely striking images.
