Keukenhof in the Netherlands is the world's second-largest flower garden. This kingdom of heavenly beauty is open to tourists from around the world for two months a year, and the garden is unique in the history of trade and industry as well.

The Dutch are known for their refinement and love of beauty. Tulips blooming as far as the horizon tell you the country's name: the Netherlands. There lies Keukenhof, an earthly paradise decked in thousands of tulip colours, where the flowers seem to speak to people everywhere in their own pure language. The tulip alone carries nearly 400 years of history. From China by way of Austria, having touched the hearts of kings of beauty, it put down roots in the Netherlands.

Patricia, a tour guide in the Netherlands, said the tulip's journey began in China in Asia. The famous Dutch botanist Kas Kusius collected tulip flower bulbs in 1953 from his friend, the ambassador of Austria, who had received them from Sultan Suleiman of Turkey of the time.

Now the tulip means the Netherlands. The tulip means a trade worth 500 billion dollars.

Bart Siemerink, managing director of Keukenhof in the Netherlands, said the Netherlands alone supplies 60 per cent of all the flowers used in the world, and Keukenhof is the heartland of the Netherlands' flower trade and its flower-centred beauty.

Beauty can colour the mind, and when it is the beauty of flowers, it can even change the meaning of life. Such deep thinking plays a big part in the Netherlands' economic development too.

Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.