Spring means watching flowers bloom and one amazing place to watch this happen can be found near Stevensburg, Virginia, just 113 kilometers (70 miles) outside of Washington. At Fresh Tulips USA, they pick 4.5 million of these buds every week, making it one of the largest greenhouses in the world.
Coen Haakman is a Dutch tulip farmer who moved his tulip-growing operation to the United States in 2004. In just seven years his company has become one of the world’s largest tulip producers.
"We are a tulip factory," says Haakman. "We employ about 100 employees. We are open from about from 7 a.m. in the morning until 3 a.m. at night."
Haakman’s original goal was to sell about five million tulips a year. His annual sales are now at 45 million with the company shipping 400,000 tulips a day. The blooms travel to market across half the United States – from Boston down to Florida, and across to Texas.
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