Parks and Recreation department teams up with Downtown Boulder Partnership to distribute tulip bulbs and raise money for the PLAY Boulder Foundation.

The annual Tulip Bulb Giveaway is ready to bloom again this year on Wednesday, August 21. Each year, the City of Boulder’s Parks and Recreation Department (BPR) partners with the Downtown Boulder Partnership (DBP) to provide free tulip bulbs to the community.

Interested residents may visit any of the participating locations below to pick up a free bag of bulbs on August 21 during specified hours. A donation to the PLAY Boulder Foundation, which supports parks and recreation opportunities for everyone in our community, is encouraged at pickup.

This year, the city has teamed up with twelve DBP member businesses to hand out the free bags of bulbs:

Community members should check DBP’s event website for individual businesses’ distribution hours. Most businesses will be ready to distribute tulip bulb bags soon after they open, however OZO Coffee Co. on West Pearl, which opens at 6 a.m., is planning to distribute tulip bulbs at 8 a.m.

Tulip bulb bags will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last and are limited to one bag per family.

BPR has been hosting this free event for community members since 2006 with the goal of sustaining beautiful and unique tulip spring blooms on the Pearl Street Mall while providing an opportunity for interested gardeners to enhance their homes and public spaces through local resources. Parks staff remove tulip bulbs throughout the summer and save them for this event when they make space for other flowers.

The history of tulips on Pearl Street Mall is a rich one. The tradition started in the late 1970s, when Boulder’s then sister city, Meppel, Holland, would send 5,000 tulip bulbs annually to be planted along the Mall. A form of this tradition continues to this day when every fall BPR plants 15,000 brand new tulip bulbs that are imported directly from Holland.

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