Following my lovely week in Amsterdam ‘Flowers On Sunday’ is focusing on the flowers I found whilst wandering around the old cobbled streets and canals of this beautiful city.
The first stop for flowers in Amsterdam has to be the floating flower market, a daily event which last week seemed to be primarily selling bulbs for flowers next spring. We came across the flower market on our walk to the Rijk’s Museum. As it is the start of the bulb season, every shop was full of spring bulbs designed to tempt the tourist!
In amongst the many bulbs I did find a few suppliers with fresh flowers for sale. The winter jacket, scarf and boots you can see on the flower seller below formed the usual mode of dress for the locals whilst I was in Amsterdam (we tourists had to make do with our August holiday attire, which was not really suitable at all!).
It seemed odd to see fresh tulips on sale with gladioli.
There were plenty of beautiful hydrangeas – I found to very hard to walk around the flower market purely as a spectator!
These beautiful sunflowers would be perfect for the wedding I am helping with in September – I hope my own are flowering in time.
Another of my autumn favourites are these white japanese anemones – I grow both the single Honorine Jobert and the double Whirlwind. After the heat of the summer I love to see the crisp fresh look they bring to my shady borders.
I am not a huge fan of succulents, but I loved the way these were displayed.
Here you can see all the different flowers jostling for attention.
There were also a lot of dried flowers available – this seller had a stunning display hanging from his ceiling.
On the second day we followed a trip to Ann Frank’s house with a visit to the Tulip Museum, which was opposite Ann Frank’s on the other side of a canal. It was lovely to see baskets of fresh tulips growing outside the museum – I am reminded that it is time to finalise my bulb order for the year, so that I will be ready to start planting narcissi and indoor forced bulbs in September.
All over Amsterdam I saw versions of the traditional tulip vase for sale. These beautiful old Delft vases were on display at the Rijk’s museum. Whilst generally I would rather display tulips massed in a large vase, I could be persuaded by this traditional route if I owned a pair of vases like these!
All over Amsterdam the bridges crossing the canals were decorated with flowers.
I even came across this floating vegetable garden.
I am planning to share some of my more general photos from our trip later in the week. We were very lucky to stay in a beautiful hotel and to find some really great restaurants to eat in. I managed to fight my way through the crowds at the Rijk’s Museum to see the Vermeer’s (which I love) and we queued for 2 hours to tour the very moving Anne Frank Museum. In between cultural visits we wandered the streets enjoying the shopping and sights. Every afternoon ended with afternoon tea at our hotel, whilst we gathered our energy to hit the streets in search of dinner.
I will be back tomorrow with some flowers from my Cutting Garden for ‘In A Vase On Monday’ and later in the week with more on Amsterdam. If anyone has been to Amsterdam I would love to hear about your impressions of the city!