A New Start - Our First Tulip Patch
- Nicolette Dobbe
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
If you were to lose everything that defined your identity, your past career, your family history, and life as you have known it, what would be the most important thing to carry forward with you as a reminder?
My family moved here from the Netherlands in 1980, with a tulip farming background and dreamed of starting their own flower farm. My parents left the comfort of their family business in order to take a huge risk and adventure to the USA to make their dreams come true. Ove 45 years, they created, built, worked, and made their vision a reality. If anyone knows farming, its filled with many ups and downs. Reliant on not only weather, optimal soil, the flower market conditions, supply chain, logistics, labor force, but also perfecting the right conditions, environment, timing, and growth of your bread and butter. Basically your only form of income has to be done right.
I grew up in this amazing environment, worked hard from a young age every spring and summer. Vacations were road trips to visit potential customers, business transactions, etc. We lived and breathed flower farming. It was a way of life.
I did go off on my own as a young adult, went to school and worked as a young professional. But ultimately, I was called back to our family business, it was in my blood. I learned all aspects from planting, growing, production, maintenance, harvesting, watering and flower care. Then we started catering to the public by opening a gift shop and holding an annual Tulip Festival in our small town. We designed flowers for events, held classes on planting, and offered cut flowers and a U-pick field for visitors to enjoy every spring. We had a strong presence for over 10 years, but then we starting cutting back on all the events. We still kept the fields open each spring for people to enjoy.
I started to become more involved in the sales end of our business. We serviced wholesalers, E-commerce, mass market accounts and other customers throughout the entire US with flowers we grew in Washington and California. Tulips, Peonies, Lilies, Iris, Ranunculus, Snapdragons and greens.
Working for our family farm could be intense, especially during peak seasons, like Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We logged a lot of hours, but that was part of the job. It really was just a way of life and it brought so much joy to everyone that worked for us, our customers and in the end the people that got to enjoy the flowers in their homes.
But then, two years ago, everything started to fall away. My mom passed away 5 years ago, which, I realized later, was my dad's driving force to keep our farm going. The agriculture environment was becoming more and more expensive to continue profitably. Costs, regulations, taxes, fees, supplies, and everything was skyrocketing. But the pricing to end users was not going up in accordance to the increases. So, my father decided to sell our Washington farm 2 years ago. This was a huge hit to my future, but I would still be selling flowers we were growing in California, and I could work from home. The more difficult thing was dismantling and removing 40 plus years of history on our farm, family home, offices, and work space. As well as letting go of our labor force, many working for us for over 20 years.
After a year of it being on the market my father also decided to sell and shut down the California farm. This was devastating. Within 6 months, I lost my family home, workplace, future, and career. Just when I thought I had lost everything I knew as my identity, my father passed away exactly 5 years, to the day, after my mom passed.
It's as if God has a different plan for my future. When your whole life starts to fall away, shed, and disintegrate, you start to wonder what's ahead? I have learned to be still, to be in the now, to find peace and to accept the now reality. When you put everything you have into a way of life, something that brought you growth, joy, purpose, connection, meaning and so much more, how do you go on? How do you keep your head up and not fall into a massive depression?
For me, I put my energy into things that make me feel inspired. That light me up. I take action, even in the smallest things so that I don't fall into a dark hole. Because believe me, I have dropped several times in the last couple of years. But, I truly believe in living life to the fullest, in seeing the beauty in life, the opportunities, the connections, the growth, the relationships and being my best self.
This leads me to what I decided to carry forward with me when I found out the Washington farm was selling. Because I had access to tulip bulbs, I decided to plant my own little Tulip Patch on our property. My husband and I planted 9 short rows of tulips last year and the blooms were magnificent! Because of the many changes, challenges and hardships, last year, we did not dig them up as you should and replant them. But as a beautiful reminder that New Beginnings are here, our little tulip patch is blooming once more right now. It almost feels like a memorial to my old life, to my parents, to my family, to my career, to how life used to be. But it also feels like a message that life goes on and renewal can be so beautiful.
At this time this little tulip patch is a personal retreat. I am not sure if I will continue on with the patch, if I will expand it and open it up to visitors. But for now, it's a treasure I hold dear of carrying on my past to the now. What a blessing it has been to be a part of so much joy for so many people. I am so grateful for this life.
Here are a couple of links to videos we made of our Tulip Patch journey.
This Blog is in honor of my parents, Benno & Klazina Dobbe, who set such a great example of living life to the fullest. Sharing beauty, healing, joy, connection, fun, adventure, learning, growth, hard work, love, laughter and so much more with everyone they encountered. Love you mom and dad!
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