Tulip planting at the Library to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of The Netherlands
Veterans, students and City officials will gather at the Westmount Public Library Storytelling Garden on Friday, November 6 at 4 p.m. to plant red and white tulip bulbs to create a 70th Anniversary Dutch-Canadian Friendship Tulip Garden.
The garden will be one of 140 gardens to be planted across Canada to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of The Netherlands and the end of the Second World War. Twenty of the gardens will be located in Quebec.
The first gift of 100,000 Dutch tulips bulbs was sent to Canada in 1945 and planted in Ottawa as a symbol of appreciation for the role Canadian soldiers played in the liberation of the Netherlands and for the hospitality Canada provided to the Dutch Royal Family in Ottawa during the war.
The tulip garden at Westmount Library is linked symbolically to the 2016 Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa. The Dutch-Canadian Friendship Tulip Garden program is led by the Canadian Garden Council in collaboration with the Canadian Tulip Festival, the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, the National Capital Commission and Canada Post. The program was made possible thanks to a donation of tulip bulbs from Vesey’s Bulbs Ltd. Photographs of all the gardens will be featured on canadasgardenroute.ca, a website sponsored by Via Rail Canada.
The public is invited to attend the planting on Friday, November 6 at 4 p.m. A celebration will take place in the garden in spring 2016 when the tulips will be in bloom.