AALSMEER, 2006 letter: Our last day in the Netherlands was an unexpected pleasure. It has been as hot in Europe as in the U.S. so we had stayed close to our motorhome and did not plan to go back to downtown Amsterdam. But on Tuesday morning, we moved from our campground to a spot just outside the storage greenhouse. The DeWits had arranged a wonderful day for us. First stop was a tour of a rose growing greenhouse that produces 3,000,000 roses every year. Plants are grown in what looks like pallets of fiberglass insulation, not earth. Sensors monitor the amount of liquid nutrition and water needed and computers control the flow. There were millions of plants in huge greenhouses with automatic lighting and watering and tanks of carbon dioxide. The latter is pumped into the greenhouse atmosphere to help growth. Flowers are cut by hand, brought into a different area, and a person goes through every rose to make sure it will pass the criteria of size and shape that the flower auction requires. If it is good, it goes onto a hook on a conveyor belt and into a machine that automatically bundles them by size of stem. They are then wrapped in cellophane and placed in a small amount of water in plastic boxes in the refrigerator. In the middle of the night, a truck comes and takes the blossoms to the auction to be sold. Flowers that are too far open or otherwise not acceptable, are thrown away. There was a huge dumpster filled with rejects!
After lunch under the arbor, we went to visit a historical garden in the town of Aalsmeer, that is, a garden which still has plants that were brought to the Netherlands hundreds of years ago and are no longer grown. Ron’s favorite was a rose that came to Holland from China in the 1500’s. There was also a display showing how the Dutch dug up the peat at the bottom of the huge lake in Aalsmeer and deposited it behind bulkheads, making hundreds of little islands. Truly, as the Dutch saying goes, God made the world but the Dutch made Holland.
Next stop was a canal in Aalsmeer where the DeWits uncovered a run-about, and we began a several hour journey through the canals and the huge lake named Westeinderplassen, past those man-made islands which the lilac growers still use. How? They put row after row of one year old lilac bushes into the rich soil, and allow them to grow until they are mature. Then, in the fall, the lilac growers dig up the bushes, put them into greenhouses, and force growth during the winter. In the spring, they harvest the lilac flowers for sale and as soon as the ground is ready, replant the bushes on the islands. They stay there until the fall, and then the process is repeated. And there are literally thousands of bushes!