Bloom Flower Festival returns to Spallumcheen (submitted image)

By Kevin Rothwell

Second annual

Bloom flower festival returns in May

Mar 24, 2023 | 1:00 PM

A four-acre field in Spallumcheen will be awash with colour again this spring as the second annual Bloom Flower Festival returns from May 4 to 28.

This year’s event will feature double the amount of rainbow-coloured tulips with 500,000 bulbs planted in the field at 5050 Knob Hill Road.

The festival has its roots in the Fraser Valley, where festival founder Alexis Szarek’s grandfather, Peter Warmerdam, immigrated from the Netherlands to the Fraser Valley in the 1950’s to farm.

Learning how to grow everything from daffodils and peonies to gladiolas, Szarek grew her own passion for flowers into a successful business, and in 2016 (some 70 years after her grandfather first arrived in Canada), she founded the Bloom Tulip Festival.

After four-years of sharing the magic of tulips with Sumas Prairies visitors, Szarek and her family relocated to the North Okanagan where they are now hosting both the annual Tulip and Sunflower festivals along with many other programs and events that celebrate local horticulture.

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“We had always dreamed of moving to the Okanagan. Spallumcheen/Armstrong is a great farming country and a fantastic place to raise kids,” Szarek said.

There have been some adjustments moving to the North Okanagan from the Fraser Valley in terms of the growing season.

There also plans for a return of the Sunflower Festival in August and September, with eight acres of sunflower varieties.

For more information about the Bloom Flower Festival click here.