Lush lilies in the limelight

Now in its 11th year, the Dutch Lily Days is a great way of showing the diversity of lilies available on the global market and how the industry is creating the lilies of the future through lengthy breeding and selection work.

Running across four days, the opendoor event started with an official opening inside Van Zanten Flower Bulbs’s monumental building in Hillegom on 6 June. The ceremony coincided with the launch of a new range of pollen-free, singleflowering Orientals selling under the Liber Lilies brand. This year, Dutch bulb farmers began producing the bulbs, with the first Liber cut lilies anticipated to enter the market in 2024.

Over the past 13 years, Van Zanten Flower Bulbs and De Jong Lelies have carried out joint research to provide a solution for two major issues surrounding the world’s fourth most-traded cut flower: pollen stains and the strong scent of its majestic and photogenic blooms.

NOT THE FIRST POLLEN-FREE LILIES

Touting Van Zanten’s Liber portfolio as the world’s first pollenfree lilies would be what Italians call a ‘commedia del arte’ as the first pollen-free specimens such as the

The Dutch lily industry ran its 11th open house in the second week of June when it opened its doors to breeders, bulb farmers, cut lily growers, trade, and press. More than 3,000 lily professionals enjoyed going behind the scenes to witness the incredible transition the Dutch lily has undergone over the past decade. The passion and innovative entrepreneurship shown by the industry were just what the sector needed after a threeyear break due to Covid-19.

Orientals ‘Tiara’ and ‘Trofea’ made their debut more than two decades ago. Also, pollen-free is not only the domain for Orientals; the virgin white OT-hybrid ‘Le Pristine’, a breed of De Vletter & Den Haan and showstopper at the Dutch Lily Days, does not shed its pollen either. The same applies to the double-flowering and pollen-free Roselily, although the latter and the more classical, single-flowered Libers are worlds apart. Hans Damen, commercial manager at Van Zanten Flower Bulbs BV, puts it this way, “Pollen-free happened mostly incidentally. This time, Van Zanten Flower Bulbs and De Jong Lelies are the first to launch a complete line of pollen-free lilies, including the seven primary colours that lay the groundwork for a more targeted lily breeding.” Analysing the Liber range in close detail, what stands out prominently is the colour white as seen in Liber ‘Snow’, Liber ‘Joy’ and Liber ‘Sky Master’. Its omnipresence can be easily explained, considering that the colour white across all lily groups is a firm favourite with consumers worldwide. But the Liber trio in white is also a technical matter.

For example, growing lily-cut flowers in a climate-controlled Dutch greenhouse is an energyintensive business, vulnerable to costly energy price shocks. At