Image: Harrison Tulip Festival / The inaugural Harrison Tulip Festival will open for the season on Monday, April 8, made possible by the Onos family that is known for beloved legacy festivals including the Chilliwack Tulip Festival and Tulips of the Valley.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Harrison Tulip Festival

Harrison Tulip Festival announces opening date

Mar 28, 2024 | 1:57 PM

AGASSIZ — Fraser Valley residents won’t have to wait too much longer for the unsurpassed beauty of innumerable tulips resplendent in a sea of dazzling colours at the inaugural Harrison Tulip Festival in Agassiz this spring.

The inaugural Harrison Tulip Festival will open for the season on Monday, April 8, made possible by the Onos family that is perhaps best known for beloved legacy festivals including the Chilliwack Tulip Festival and Tulips of the Valley.

Organizers say the festival will run for approximately four weeks, creating multiple opportunities for visitors to secure spring photos, memories and experiences as they tread softly around tulips.

This year’s event, representing the 18th annual tulip festival put forth by the Onos family, promises to be the biggest, best and most colourful yet, offering an unparalleled display of 10 million bulbs distributed over 35 acres, including 50 tulip varieties, 15 types of daffodils and 12 variations of hyacinths.

The festival offers wide pedestrian pathways alongside the flowers, making it ideal for capturing beautiful photos. The careful spacing is intentional, organizers say. By utilizing specialized bulb-planting equipment, the Onos family is able to grow the widest rows in Canada, creating extensive vistas of blooms. In addition, this style of planting enables the sustainability-minded farming family to optimize the number of bulbs per acre for the most effective land use.

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“Since different floral varieties bloom over the span of the festival and across the grounds, repeat outings offer a range of delights,” says Kate Onos-Gilbert, festival founder. “Between seven and 25 acres of flowers are in full bloom at any given time, so there is always plenty to see.”

Visitors are free to create family or group portraits that include backdrops like swing sets, antique tractors and horse carts, vintage bicycles, a 1950s convertible, a 1965 Airstream trailer, or raised platforms that make staging photos easy. The unmistakable splendor of Mount Cheam accentuates the festival’s stunning backdrop.

Onos Greenhouses grows the tulips on the Agassiz field that becomes the annual festival grounds. Once the tulip festival concludes, Onos Greenhouses collects the bulbs and then uses them in their greenhouse operation, which currently supplies 85 per cent of the cut tulips that are sold throughout Western Canada.

Two food trucks will be onsite daily, offering food for purchase, including authentic Dutch stroopwafels that cleverly evoke tulips’ storied homeland. A farm store also offers souvenirs, fresh cut and potted flowers, and refreshments for purchase.

The Harrison Tulip Festival is located at 5039 Lougheed Highway in Agassiz.

Visit harrisontulipfest.com for more information.