Tulip fields on Seabird Island, Agassiz, British Columbia. Tulip festivals are held in many locations around the world. These gorgeous and beautifully-fragrant flowers were once so popular that they sparked a speculative frenzy now called “tulip mania.” During this time, tulips were so expensive that they were treated as a form of currency. Photo #1 by Dru!

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Oregon. Once upon a time, tulips crashed the Dutch economy. During the 1600s, tulips were so wildly popular in Holland that social status was measured by exotic tulips. “At the peak of tulip mania, in March 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble.” Photo #2 by Misserion

A small boat with tulip flowers in the foreground – Keukenhof, Lisse, The Netherlands. Photo #3 by Tiago Fioreze

Woodburn Tulip Festival in Oregon. Photo #4 by Sarah McD from Oregon, USA

A colorful evening at Chicago Botanic Garden. The photographer won the Picsean World Photo contest with this photo. Photo #5 by Sandeep Pawar

“Every spring hundreds of thousands of people come to enjoy the celebration of spring as millions of tulips burst into bloom,” at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival near Mt. Vernon, Washington. Photo #6 by Larry Myhre

Tulip fields at sunset. Did you know that tulips come in many colors, except for pure blue? Tulips with “blue” in the name usually have a violet hue. Photo #7 by stokes rx

Tulips and Windmill at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farms and Festival, Oregon. Most people think of tulips originated in the Netherlands, but the flower was first cultivated commercially 500 years ago in the Ottoman Empire. Photo #8 by Sheila Sund

“The winds of Skagit.” The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Washington has been held every April since 1983. Photo #9 by Ryan Heaney

“Joyful Runway.” Wikipedia states, “In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover’s heart, burned to a coal by love’s passion.” More specifically, to give a red tulip was to say “As the redness of this flower, I am on fire with love.” And “to give a yellow tulip was to declare your love hopelessly and utterly.” Photo #10 by Ian Sane

Under the tulips. Photo #11 by ♥siebe ©

Tulips at Keukenhof, the Netherlands, also known as the Garden of Europe. It is home to about 7 million flowers! Photo #12 by Donar Reiskoffer

Wooden Shoe tulip farm, tulip field during dawn, not HDR. Photo #13 by GeoFX

Dutch Color Fields. The photographer noted, “Flower fields in North-Holland comprising various blossoming flower species.” Photo #14 by Peter Femto

May 2013 at Keukenhof. In 1930, the song Tiptoe Through the Tulips was featured in the first Looney Tunes cartoon ever, during “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub.” Photo #15 by nikontino

Keukenhof has been the world’s largest flower garden for over 50 years with about 7 million bulbs planted annually. With more than just tulips, the air must have a heavenly scent. Photo #16 by nikontino

Blue mountains and red tulips at Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. There are 1000+ acres of Skagit Valley tulip, daffodil, and iris fields. Like roses, giving red tulips is a way of declaring love. Photo #17 by Rajiv Vishwa from Bellevue, United States

The photographer wrote, “We were like little kids hide and seeking amongst the tulips.” The song Tiptoe Through the Tulips was first recorded by the ‘Crooning Troubadour’ Nick Lucas in the musical “Gold Diggers of Broadway;” the song hit the top of the charts in May 1929 and held the #1 position for 10 weeks. Three other singers hit the charts in 1929 with the same song. Photo #18 by sassy40

Skagit Valley, Washington, USA, tulip fields. Wikipedia explained, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips was “heard in the opening scene of the 1945 movie ‘The Confidential Agent.’ The song was revived in 1967 by the California rock group The Humane Society and in 1968 by Tiny Tim, whose version charted at #17 that year. It was also covered by Uke til U Puke and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.” Photo #19 by Jim Culp

Tulip farmlands outside Lisse, next to Keukenhof, Holland. There are signs posted that say, “Please don’t walk in our tulips.” Tiptoeing is not specifically mentioned. Photo #20 by Christiaan Kuun

It may look like a scene from Holland, but this tulip festival was in Sakura City in Japan. Photo #21 by hisa fujimoto

Dreamin’ – Hot Air Balloon Rides over the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm; it has has over 40 acres of tulips and daffodils. “Our favorite time of year is when the tulips bloom! There is nothing like the colors of our tulip fields in the spring. Every year the varieties are arranged differently in a new pattern of color as we rotate our tulip fields to a new location.” Photo #22 by Jesse Millan

John Deere tractor parked in the Oregon tulip fields. Photo #23 by Misserion

Serpent Garden in Japan. Tiptoe Through the Tulips “was also featured in the 2011 horror film Insidious a number of times throughout, and in the thriller film Wrecked as a radiotune. The song was also mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on page 34. Vernon Dursley was humming the song while he boarded up small cracks around the front and back doors of his house so he could stop letters from Hogwarts reaching his nephew. The song is played every year by the Holland High School marching band in the Tulip Time festival parades each May in Holland, Michigan.” Photo #24 by Agustin Rafael Reyes

Red, cream and purple, view from the Dutch dyke. “The tulip was once the most expensive flower in the world. At one point during the height of Europe’s tulip mania, a single Viceroy tulip bulb was purchased for two lasts of wheat, four lasts of rye, four fat oxen, eight fat swine, 12 fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four casks of beer, two tons of butter, a complete bed, a suit of clothes and a silver drinking cup! In the winter of 1636-37, a valuable tulip bulb could change hands ten times in a day.” Photo #25 by Charles Roffey

Overdose on pink in South Holland. Pink tulips symbolize caring and attachment. Not all tulips are incredibly fragrant, but some species are. Good scent or not, tulips are edible. During WWII and the Dutch famine of 1944, people survived by eating tulips and sugar beets. Photo #26 by Felix63

Tulips in Kiso Sansen National Government Park, Japan. Other tulip color meanings are: White tulips are supposed to represent purity, innocence, forgiveness and respect. Cream-colored tulips mean commitment. Yellow tulips have changed meanings over time “from representing hopeless love, to a more positive meaning of brightness and sunshine.” Purple tulips symbolize royalty and rebirth. Photo #27 by Alpsdake

Tulip landscape with the contrast of the clouds coming across the field. Photo #28 by Andy Simonds

White peacock in the orange tulips at Keukenhof. Tulip flowers usually have 2-6 leaves, but some species have up to 12 leaves. Generally tulips have one flower per stem, yet there are a few species that have up to 4 flowers on a single stem. Photo #29 by ♥siebe ©

Ottawa Tulip Festival. Wikipedia explained, “The Canadian Tulip Festival, which claims to be the world’s largest tulip festival, is a major event held annually each May in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. During World War II, the Dutch Royal Family took refuge in Canada. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born at Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943, and the Canadian government declared the land to be extraterritorial. This was done to ensure that the princess would have Dutch citizenship. Every year since, Queen Juliana and the royal family after her death have sent tulip bulbs for the festival.” Photo #30 by Asif Ali

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. According to Wikipedia, “Variegated varieties admired during the Dutch tulipomania gained their delicately feathered patterns from an infection with the tulip breaking virus. While the virus produces fantastically colorful flowers, it also causes weakened plants prone to decline. Today the virus is almost eradicated from tulip growers’ fields. Tulips that are affected by mosaic virus are called “broken tulips”; while such tulips can occasionally revert to a plain or solid coloring, they will remain infected with the virus. While some modern varieties also display multicolored patterns, the patterns result from breeding selection for a genetic mutation.” Just the same, variegated tulips symbolize “beautiful eyes because of their gorgeous color patterns.” Photo #31 by Peter M Graham

Sea of red tulips in Fraser Valley. Photo #32 by Kyle Pearce

“Tulips FTW, New York.” The photographer added, “No true Dutchman in New York would have been able to resist this photo opportunity. Not only did we once own the place, but these Tulips are of course still © (all rights reserved) by The Netherlands ® ™.” Photo #33 by Lambert Wolterbeek Muller

Rainbow over the tulip fields in British Columbia. Photo #34 by Dru!

Gorgeous sunrise at Woodburn. Photo #35 by stokes rx

Couldn’t do “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” without a nod to the odd, some say creepy, Tiny Tim. Video #1 by Tiny Tim via ulfablabla