Process of Show

This process to put a show together starts in June. It is almost a year-round process for us to put this on. Orders go in in June, with delivery in October. All of my orders are put through to two companies that are directly connected to Holland. Their offices are here in New York, but their farms are in Holland. The companies that I use, one of them is directly connected with Eastman. He originally was ordering bulbs from this company. It's been around since the late 1800s. It's another way for us to connect with how George Eastman did run his gardens and how he ran his flowers in the winter. All of my bulbs are brought direct from Holland, usually on skids that are sent over. How I know is we have packing lists that come in Dutch. Luckily, I do get sent ahead of time packing lists in English so that I can understand what they've sent me. That's just the beginning of this show that you're looking at today. Come October, the bulbs start arriving into the U.S. and are brought to us here in the Eastman House, and that's where we commence the heavy work. My volunteers come forward and help us pot up to 14,000 plus bulbs for the fall to be put into a root cellar so that they can get their winter cooling. We basically trick them into thinking it's spring and get them to grow. That process goes all the way through to December, and then we begin bringing them out into the greenhouse. And through there, all the way from December to February, the beginning of the show, we're continually bringing more product into the greenhouse, getting it ready for the show. During the months of January and the beginning of February, we're moving things around in the greenhouse, hoping to get everything to grow and be ready for the show all in one shot. Because tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths all grow at a different rate, it's a matter of bringing them into the greenhouse to give them enough time to flower. Tulips take an average of eight weeks to flower, whereas hyacinths take as little as four. So we're bringing things in in stages to make sure everything blooms at the same time. Comes to the show, I bring in another staff of volunteers to come in and help me set up the show. We set up the general idea of where the show will be held. I put the plants down on the floor, explain the colors to my volunteers, and then I let them have at it. They get to design the show completely themselves. We do a little tweaking, but most of the time, it comes out pretty good.