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Episode 3: All bulbs upright

March 7, 2022

Episode 3 answers the question that is often asked after the first two episodes of 'Bollenjongens': why are there no girls in the series? The boys explain.

The Keukenhof is the largest flower park in the world that attracts more than a million visitors every year. But that's really secondary. The park is actually mainly a place for growers to show their customers which bulbs they produce with their own show garden. But the park must of course be a beautiful whole. And designer Frans takes care of that. He tells Johan how he does that and Johan takes the opportunity to ask whether he can also get his own flower bed in the Keukenhof together with the 'bollenjongens'.

Frans also regularly visits growers to discuss the design of their show garden. How does Frans envisage this and can the growers supply the bulbs for it? And do the growers themselves have any wishes? Bollenjongen Mark also has a show garden in the park and Frans will visit Mark to put together his perk for the coming season.

Tim is into hyacinths and will eventually take over the company from his father and uncle together with his cousin. Tim tells what it is like to work in a family business and why he chose it after working for a different boss. Today Tim is in Voorhout to plant hyacinths on the land and that turns out to be a bizarre job, which is a lot more labour-intensive than planting tulips. Johan discovers the office humor of the hyacinth planters.

And can you learn to become a 'bollenjongen'? You can go to school for it, but according to the 'bollenjongens' you won't make it.

Watch this episode:

All episodes

Episode 1: Sand, water and grass

The flower bulb region. A colorful area in the province of South Holland. The beautiful fields of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths attract more than a million visitors every year and both flowers and bulbs are important export products for The Netherlands. But how do the bulbs get on the land and the flowers in your […]
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Episode 2: A new season

It is October and planting season in the Dutch flower bulb region. One ‘bollenjongen’ sees it as a new start on the way to spring, for another spring is still far away because of the rain in autumn. Johan is with Daan who can finally get his full boxes of bulbs out of the shed […]
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Episode 3: All bulbs upright

Episode 3 answers the question that is often asked after the first two episodes of 'Bollenjongens': why are there no girls in the series? The boys explain. The Keukenhof is the largest flower park in the world that attracts more than a million visitors every year. But that's really secondary. The park is actually mainly […]
Read more..

Episode 4: Bulbs for the Keukenhof

The bollenjongens have planted their bulbs and winter is coming. This means that the bulbs must be protected against frost and that is why a layer of straw is placed on the land. Reed used to be used for this and images from 1950 show how that was done then. Nowadays it is done by […]
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Episode 5: Spring in winter

We saw earlier that Johan has succeeded in arranging his own Bollenjongens-flower-bed in the Keukenhof. Today he is taking a ride through the Flower bulb region to get the tulip bulbs from the boys. Then he immediately drives to Keukenhof to plant the bulbs together with Frans, the designer of the park. And even if […]
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Episode 6: Everything in bloom

When winter is over, the straw that protects the bulbs from the cold has to be removed from the land. They call this chopping straw and Martijn shows how he does it in Hillegom. The straw is pulverized and blown into the paths of the tractors. However, there is also another method that forcibly sucks […]
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Episode 7: A sustainable flower bulb region

The Flower bulb region looks beautiful three months a year, but the region unfortunately also has a less beautiful image. When the region makes the news, it is often about the crop protection products that are used in bulb cultivation. And that is not surprising, because it has always been the case that these crop […]
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Episode 8: Cut off the head!

The time has come, we can show the result of the bollenjongens-bed in Keukenhof. Six months ago, Johan planted the bulbs in the flowerbed together with Frans, the designer of the park. A rainbow was made from the tulips that were cared for by the bollenjongens. You regularly see irrigation machines on the fields in […]
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Episode 9: Bulbs, bulbs and more bulbs

The Flower bulb region is a major tourist attraction in march, april and may and more than a million people from all over the world enjoy the bulb fields every year and visit the Keukenhof. In this episode the bollenjongens guess where most tourists come from and what they actually think of all those tourists. […]
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Episode 10: Across the world

This final episode focuses on the export of the bulbs. Lucas works for an exporter of bulbs and explains what needs to be done before the bulbs can be exported abroad. The bulbs all have to look perfect, especially for Japan, because there they do something with the bulbs that we can't imagine. Allan's company […]
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We zijn heel benieuwd wat jij vindt van de serie ‘Bollenjongens’. Vind je het interessant, mooi, grappig of misschien wel verbazingwekkend? Of heb je andere woorden die je te binnen schieten als je het over ‘Bollenjongens’ hebt? Laat het ons weten! Mail naar johan@bollenjongens.nl