April is tulip month in Washington state, and the Skagit Valley, north of Seattle, is the place to be. For many years the valley has celebrated tulips during April. However, times change, and for a few years the number of display gardens had dwindled. Fortunately the last few years have seen a renaissance in the valley.
Last year I went up for the festival and visited two newer sites. Tulip Valley Farms is the only U-pick garden in the valley. One can choose a unique bouquet of tulips. It also has some sites for those all important selfies. Garden Rosalyn is unique in that it is more of a display garden much like the famous Keukenhof Tulip Gardens in the Netherlands which my daughter and I visited a few years ago. Of course the larger and older gardens of Roozengaarde and Tulip Town remain at the top of most people’s list and are well visited.
When I scanned the list of gardens for this year’s festival, I noted a new garden added to the list. Since I reviewed the two newer gardens last year, I thought I should check out this new garden for 2025. I would like to be able to encourage people to go to the newer gardens and help make them successful.
So on a Wednesday in mid-April Silvette and I headed north to Mt. Vernon. It was a very sunny day with few clouds in the sky. It was a great day to be visiting gardens although not the greatest of days for photographing flowers. The bright light can wash out the colors and create colorless spots on the petals of the tulips.
The new garden we were planning to visit is called Skagit Acres. It is apparently operated by the same company as Tulip Town. In fact they offer combined tickets for both gardens which allows you to see both the larger Tulip Town and the smaller Skagit Acres.
One of the good things about the Skagit Acres is that it is just a short drive off the freeway. In fact one can see the garden from the freeway. One note is that the entrance is from the main road. In using Google maps it took us to a side street which turned out to be the exit only. (We sneaked in anyway.)
We arrived around 4:30. I was hoping the sun would be a bit lower and less harsh in the late afternoon. The garden closes at 6:00 so I didn’t want to be too late. When we arrived, only a few people were there visiting so there was no problem with parking.
The garden has a gift shop, a nursery, and a cafe along with the tulip fiield. One can visit these other areas without paying the entrance fee. The ticket booth for the tulip field is at the entrance to the garden area. I didn’t visit the nursery or the cafe, but I did go inside the gift shop. It is a fairly large space and nicely set up. They sell a lot of country style objects, particularly household items. Since it was spring, many of the items reflected spring themes of flowers and rabbits. On one wall was a selfie spot with a floral background, but it wasn’t tulips.
It was a short walk over to the tulip field. Once we paid, we walked down a dirt path to the field. Three tall wooden tulips were at the edge of the garden which offered a selfie moment. Beyond that were the rows of tulips.
Since this was to be an opportunity for people to interact with the tulips, take photos, and enjoy the colors, it was a bit disconcerting to see a sign indicating that they didn’t want people in the rows of flowers. Asking people to stay on the paths basically meant the only place to walk was around the perimeter of the field. The only place to get up close to the tulips was mostly at the ends of the rows. It seemed a bit inhibiting to me. If they had various paths crossing through the garden then I think it would have been OK. However paying to only walk around the outside of the field and taking photos from a distance was disappointing. I was glad for my telephoto lens.
The location does offer some other photo opportunities. Looking east from certain locations one can get a photo with Mt. Baker in the background. Looking west are some railroad tracks. Two trains went by while we were there which offered a unique background for tulip photos.
At the end of each row were markers indicating the particular tulip species in that row. If someone wanted to purchase the bulbs, this is where one could get the information. Of course this is the real purpose of the tulip gardens, to produce bulbs to sell for planting the following year.
Originally I thought that with the bright sun it would be better to take photos with the sun to my back. I even tried to create shadows with my own body to stop the wash out of color. Later, however, I realized that taking photos with the sun shining through the petals offered a nice photo opportunity.
Another challenge on this particular day was the wind. I was not anticipating such a windy day. The tulips were being blown around quite a bit. This was particularly problematic when I was trying to take a photo of an individual flower. The wind would keep moving it making it challenging to get a sharp photo centered in the frame.
One sight I had fun photographing was the mistake bulbs. Here and there among the rows one would see a flower of the wrong color. Somehow it had gotten mixed up with the other bulbs. They created unique images.
Walking away from the tulip fields of Skagit Acres, I have to say I felt a bit let down. I felt the experiences I had at the other gardens last year were better than what Skagit Acres offered. This year (2025) I did not visit those gardens, but by all accounts they offer the same opportunities as last year and may have even improved some.
I should add that Skagit Acres does have food trucks on the weekend and a beer and wine garden so being there on a weekday offered less than at other times. I do hope that Skagit Acres thrives and develops into a great spot to visit. The more gardens the better so that the tulip festival can become better each year.
Did anyone else visit any of the tulip gardens this year? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.