As I stood gazing at the rows of tulips outside of Mt. Vernon the other day, I was reminded of a line from the movie "Robinhood: Prince of Thieves". This film from the early 1990's starred Kevin Costner as Robin and Morgan Freeman as Azeem, his Moor friend. A young English girl comes up to Azeem (Freeman) and asks, "Did God paint you?" His reply..."Allah (God) loves wondrous variety." Isn't that so true?

A friend and I visited the tulip fields at RoozenGaarde, founded by William Roozen in 1950 in Skagit Valley. He was simply carrying on a family business from Holland that dates back to the mid 1700's. The business grew and grew and now encompasses over 1000 acres of field blooms and 15 acres of greenhouses. The Roozen family business of growing tulips, daffodils, and irises is the largest in the world! Though you can purchase flowers for sale during the Tulip Festival, their primary business is selling bulbs. The fields are truly a sight to behold....a little taste of Holland in our backyard!

Love this...the one tulip that walks to the beat of his own drummer!

Along with the rows of tulips, RoozenGaarde has a lovely 35 acre display garden with each flower variety carefully labelled. This garden is redesigned and replanted each year with over 150 varieties of bulbs. If you love flowers, this is a garden to see! The garden is a vivid reminder of Matthew 6:26-28, "And who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about your clothing? Consider the flowers of the field, how they grow, they do not toil or spin, yet not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these."

Red and white...always a favorite of mine!

Can you believe all this beauty is available for our viewing pleasure for only $5.00? The best bargain around in my book! In addition to RoozenGaarde, there is a another area of tulip fields called Tulip Town, founded by the DeGoede family. We did not visit those fields, due to time and traffic. We arrived at the RoozenGaarde fields around 10:30 and by noon, the traffic was crazy...bumper to bumper. Fortunately, my friend knew her way around Mt. Vernon so we managed to skirt the worst of the traffic....go early, but do go!