New King Charles III tulip will soon bring its elegance and beauty to Keukenhof and Monty Don’s Herefordshire garden Longmeadow

Keukenhof’s director Sandra Bechtholt, H.E. Ms Joanna Roper, British ambassador to the Netherlands and gardener Patrick van Dijk.

Last autumn, Ms Joanna Roper, British ambassador to the Netherlands, Keukenhof’s director Sandra Bechtholt and gardener Patrick van Dijk joined forces to plant bulbs of the brand new King Charles III tulip at the world famous spring gardens Keukenhof in the Netherlands. Now that spring is around the corner the new will soon begin to bloom at Keukenhof and Monty Don’s garden Longmeadow in Herefordshire.

Tulipa ‘King Charles III’ is a mutant from ‘Rejoyce’, which is, in turn, is a mutant of an original cultivar, ‘Lydia’. ‘King Charles III’ has the same bulb and plant structure as the popular garden and tub varieties ‘Lydia’ and ‘Rejoyce’ but comes in a different colour.

The first bulbs of the King Charles III tulip, suitable for planting both directly in garden soil and in balcony boxes and planters, will be available in the 2027/2028 season.

The King Charles lll tulip will not only flower in Keukenhof – its blossoms can be seen in Britain too. Through the  Dutch Embassy in London, the special tulip bulbs were forwarded to Herfordshire. Here the King Charles III bulbs have been planted in the garden of Longmeadow, gardens of Monty Don and BBC Gardener’s World.

Ambassador Roper said: “Tulips are perhaps the most famous symbol of the Netherlands and to name this tulip after His Majesty King Charles III is a wonderful way to emphasise the close ties between the UK and the Netherlands. I look forward to seeing this tulip in bloom, both in my own garden and at the world-famous Keukenhof.”

The new tulip is a bred of Hybris, which was extremely honoured to receive permission to name a mutant of Tulipa Rejoyce after the new British monarch.

In 1952, another royal tulip, Queen Elizabeth II, was registered with the Dutch General Bulb Growers’ Association (KAVB), by P. Nijssen and Sons. One of the Nijssen sons, P.J. Nijssen, went on to become one of the founders of Hybris B.V. in 1979.

The Keukenhof spring gardens open on 21 March 2024. This year, it will be 75 years since the first of these flower exhibitions opened to the public.

The exhibition will last for almost eight weeks, during which 1.4 million people from all over the world will flock to this magical park, because there is no better place to see millions of tulips, daffodils and other flowering bulbs in bloom than Keukenhof.