Tulip Time

The riot of blooms on the Pearl Street Mall puts a little spring in everyone’s step—and then gives back again with a bulb giveaway at summer’s end

By BRAD WEISMANN

Photos Boulder Downtown

It’s time again for children decked out in fairy wings and elfin caps, to follow the Tulip Fairy through a multicolored sea of tulips on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.

Boulder’s Tulip Fairy & Elf Festival, one of the city’s most endearing traditions, has been welcoming the tulips nearly every April or May since the late 1970s. Back then, Boulder’s then–sister city Meppel, Holland, would send 5,000 tulip bulbs to be planted along the mall every year. Boulder is no longer a sister city with Meppel, so Boulder Parks and Recreation orders more than 15,000 bulbs from Holland to plant every year.

The festival, a day full of music and performances, crafts and activities, face painting, foam-sword dueling and parades, was formally launched in 2013 after being held informally for more than a decade. Debra Ordway, former owner of Theatrical Costumes, Etc., plays the Tulip Fairy and “really exemplifies the spirit of the event,” says Anna Salim, vice president of operations and programming for Downtown Boulder Partnership.

“In 2003, about 150 kids participated. By 2010, it was thousands,” Salim says. Kids (and their parents) were so distraught when the festival was canceled in 2015 because of the weather, that the organizers implemented a makeup date in case of rain or snow.

After little ones have had the opportunity to prance amid their multicolored glories and mall walkers have ogled their blooms, all the tulip bulbs are shared with the city at large. Each year, Boulder Parks and Recreation partners with the Downtown Boulder Partnership to provide free tulip bulbs to the community.

“In May, we dig up the bulbs and let them dry so we can share them with community members at our annual tulip giveaway in late August,” says Jonathan Thornton, communications program manager for the City of Boulder. “We partnered with Downtown Boulder and several local businesses so each receives bulbs and can then distribute one bag per family.”

Bulbs are given away on a first-come, first-served basis. They’re gone within a matter of hours.

In the fall, the cycle starts all over again when Boulder Parks and Recreation crews pull out the annuals that have bloomed all summer and plant a new shipment of bulbs in the mall’s flower beds. It takes about a week to get all the bulbs in the ground.

“Meanwhile,” Thornton says, “people are on the mall, stopping and watching the work, asking questions and just thanking them for doing the job.”  For more details on the Tulip Fairy & Elf Festival, see our Events section.