Growing Tulips & Dahlias in Holland with FAM Flower Farm
Episode 92: Growing Tulips & Dahlias in Holland with FAM Flower Farm
FAM Flower Farm is a Dutch consumer flower brand based in Holland’s famous flower bulb region near Keukenhof, founded by lifelong friends Linda and Marlies on top of their husbands’ multi-generational tulip and dahlia farms. This week on The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, I sat down with both women to talk about Dutch flower farming, dahlia tuber growing, and what it really takes to build a brand on top of a 240-year-old family business.
I have been following their work for years. Two best friends who grew up together in middle school, both surrounded by flowers, who eventually married into farming families and decided to build something together. Their brand, FAM Flower Farm, sits on top of two completely separate Dutch flower businesses. One grows tulip and daffodil bulbs. The other grows dahlias by the millions. Together, the two women have built one of the most beloved flower brands in Europe.
What I did not expect was how much they would teach me about authenticity, family business, and the future of flower farming in just one hour.
How Did FAM Flower Farm Get Started?
Linda’s husband Henk is a tulip grower. The Vanderslot family has farmed the same land for 240 years. Marlies’s husband Hubert is a dahlia man whose grandfather grew dahlias before him. For most of their lives, both families grew flowers that traveled to wholesalers and export companies, then disappeared. They never knew who planted them, who arranged them, or who held them at a wedding.
About seven years ago, Linda and Marlies were having dinner with friends. They started talking about how their husbands worked so hard, with so much passion, and yet had no relationship with the people who actually loved the flowers. The product just left.
“We live in the Keukenhof area,” Linda said. “All the people, all the tourists coming to the tulip fields, everybody is so enthusiastic. And we said, we need to share more and show more the beauty of the farm. Not only bulbs and machines and tractors, but show the beautiful side, the romantic side.”
So they did. They walked into a narcissus field, dressed their daughters in pretty dresses, gave them baskets of flowers, and started posting on Instagram. Within a few months, they had a community. Within a few years, they had a brand.
This is one of those stories that sounds so simple in hindsight. But underneath the pretty pictures is something most flower farmers do not talk about enough. They built a consumer brand on top of an existing family business, instead of trying to do everything themselves. The husbands kept growing. The women told the story and built a global brand.
Why Are Most of the World’s Dahlia Tubers Grown in Holland?
If you have ever wondered why so many of the world’s dahlia tubers come from Holland, here is the answer. It is the soil, and the sea, and the very specific patch of land where Linda and Marlies live.
“More than 90 percent of the bulk of the dahlia tubers are coming from our area,” Linda told me. “It’s only a few kilometers, but this is the best soil and the best temperatures and the sea climate. And that makes it the best quality for tubers.”
I sat with that for a while. Most of the dahlia tubers planted in gardens around the world are grown in a stretch of Dutch land that is just a few kilometers wide. The growers there know exactly what they are doing because they have been doing it for generations. And the climate cannot be replicated anywhere else.
It made me think about Skagit Valley in Washington State, where so much of our U.S. tulip and dahlia industry has rooted itself. Some places on earth are simply meant to grow flowers.
Why Do Dutch Flower Farmers Sell Whole Dahlia Clumps Instead of Dividing?
This is one of the most interesting things I learned in our conversation. In the U.S., flower farmers spend months in winter and early spring digging up dahlia clumps and cutting them apart, dividing each clump into multiple individual tubers to plant or sell. In Holland, FAM does the opposite. They sell the whole clump.
“We grow the complete clumps,” Marlies said. “So you plant the complete clump, and we do not cut parts of the legs or whatever. They will always start a new plant. And we do it mechanically. Sometimes there are smaller or broken legs, but it has no problem at all because there will always start at least one, two, three, four, five new sprouts from the original tuber.”
So how do they multiply the variety they want more of? Cuttings. From one mother tuber, they can grow 15 to 20 new plants in a single season. It is a completely different system, and it scales to millions of plants.
There is no right way to grow flowers. There are only the ways that work for the land, the climate, the labor force, and the market. What works in Holland is not what works in Oregon. And that is part of what makes this industry so endlessly fascinating.
How Can Flower Farmers Stay Authentic in the Age of AI?
The hardest part of our conversation was about something neither of us has fully figured out. What does authenticity even mean anymore in a world where AI can generate flower photos, harvest videos, and even an entire virtual avatar of you?
Linda told me that just this week, someone commented on one of her Instagram photos and said it must be AI. She almost cried. Because of course it was real. She took it. The flowers were real. The light was real. She was real.
This is the moment we are all in. As content gets harder to verify, the people who keep showing their faces, telling their real stories, and sharing their real fields will be the ones who keep their audience’s trust. That is what FAM has been doing from day one. Linda and Marlies were posting their daughters in flower fields long before AI was even a question.
“We try to tell an honest story and make it realistic,” Marlies said. “And we want to make people enthusiastic. As we both are enthusiastic about the product, about the flowers, we hope we can bring it over to the audience. So they get to start in the garden, only a small garden or put some bulbs in a pot, and enjoy.”
That is the invitation. Not perfection. Not performance. Just a real life with real flowers.
What Does “Grow Your Own Happiness” Mean to FAM Flower Farm?
If there is one phrase from this conversation I will carry with me, it is this. FAM Flower Farm’s new slogan, born last year, is “Grow Your Own Happiness.”
“It’s in your backyard,” Linda said. “You just, it’s not very expensive. It’s close by. Everybody can do it. It’s in your own hands to be happy in your backyard.”
That is the truth at the heart of all of this. The flowers are not the goal. They are the invitation. To slow down, to step outside, to put your hands in the soil, and to remember that joy is not something you have to wait for. You can grow it. You can pick it. And then, if you want, you can give it to someone else.
If you are listening to this episode and dreaming about starting a garden, a flower business, or anything else, here is the advice Linda and Marlies wanted to leave you with.
Just start. Start small. Plant something. Learn from it. Try again next year. Share the joy.
That is how a brand built across two family farms in Holland began. With one Instagram post, one narcissus field, and two friends who believed they could build something beautiful together.
Learn More About Growing Tulips & Dahlias in Holland
If this story stirred something in you, tune in to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform!
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Resources & Links Mentioned
- FAM Flower Farm Website: famflowerfarm.eu (ships within Europe only)
- Instagram: @famflowerfarm
Guest Bio
Linda and Marlies are the lifelong best friends behind FAM Flower Farm, a consumer flower brand rooted in two Dutch family farms in Holland’s famous flower bulb region. Linda married into the Vanderslot family, where her husband Henk grows tulip bulbs and cut flowers on land the family has farmed for 240 years. Marlies married Hubert, whose family farm produces over 200 varieties of dahlias for export across Europe. Together, the two women have built a global flower community by sharing the beauty, the seasons, and the real life behind the fields most people only ever see in photos.
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