Every spring the tulips bloom and once they reach a certain point, they are “topped” meaning that the heads of the flowers are snapped off.

Here is an explanation of why this is done from the Tulips.com web site:

Growers top the tulips about three weeks after blooming for two reasons: First, they must remove the flowers before the petals fall in the foliage. If they were to ignore this step, the dropping petals would cause the tulip plants to rot and die down before the new bulb(s) had a chance to grow. Topping also removes the seedpod from the plant, which if left would rob some of the energy that would otherwise go to the new bulb. Six to eight weeks after removing the blooms, growers usually dig the tulips and the process of drying, cleaning, grading, and temperature treating takes place.

The flowers are left on the ground, between the rows creating a trail of fantastic colors!

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival 2015

This year the tulips came early to Skagit County, the warm weather saw the blooms start in mid-March.

It looks like the Tulip Season will end soon, the latest post from the tulip grower is that by April 13th, this coming Monday, they will mostly be gone! If you would like to come for a Tulip Photo Tour, this is the last week!

We offer sunrise and sunset tours of the tulip fields, starting at 5:30 am for the sunrise tour, we meet and discuss techniques for capturing the perfect images and then head out into the fields where I will suggest angles and techniques for capturing a wonderful sky to accent the tulips.

The sunset tour starts (Monday through Friday only, there are too many people on Saturday and Sunday evenings) at 3pm.

At the end of the tour we will adjourn to a local Starbucks and review images where I will also give advices on how to edit your shots.

Here is the link to get signed up!

Here are some images from this Skagit Valley Tulip Festival 2015:

And if you miss the Tulips, but would like to come visit Skagit Valley for a Photo Tour, we also have a Skagit Valley Heritage Barn Photo Tour.

Night Sky Photo Tours are also available, when there is no moon. Capturing images of the Milky Way is fun and surprisingly easy! Have a look here.