Srinagar: With over 1.7 million tulips of 74 varieties, Asia’s Largest Tulip Garden in Srinagar, Kashmir, is all set to be thrown open to the public from Wednesday, March 26. Hundreds of gardeners are working tirelessly to make sure the garden is in full bloom at the time of the opening.

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With the spring on, the Tulip Garden, located below the Zabarwan Hills and overlooking the world-famous Dal Lake, is looking no less than a floral wonderland. The floriculture department is also planning a Tulip Festival in the month of April. And the gardeners are making sure that most of the tulips bloom before the opening of the garden.

“The garden will be thrown open to the public on March 26, and this year the Tulip Show of 2025 will be a glamorous one with vibrant colours. We will have around 74 varieties of tulips this season. Apart from these, we have a very good collection of Daffodils, Hyacinths, and Muscaris. As far as the quantity of the tulips this year, we have 1.7 million bulbs this time, and the tourists will be able to see them bloom. We welcome everyone for the spring festival and be part of this,” said Asif Ahmad Itoo, Floriculture Officer.

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Hundreds of gardeners and staff are working day and night to prepare the garden for the opening. It takes around 6 months to get the garden ready, and extensive planning is done much earlier before the opening of the garden. And this year, the floriculture department says all the previous records of tourist footfall will be broken.

The Tulip Garden has become extremely famous among the people across India. A lot of travellers plan their visit to the valley during the tulip bloom. And this year, the floriculture department has also planted other varieties of flowers, like hyacinths, daffodils, muscaris, and cyclamens, to make the garden look more colourful.

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“We throw the garden open in the last week of March, and the number of varieties this year are 74 as against 73 last year. The number of tourists last year was 4.5 lakh, and we expect this would be increasing substantially this year. We have planted 17.5 lakh bulbs this year. We are expecting around 5.5 lakh visitors this year with an increase of one lakh tourists,” said Shakeel Ur Rehman, Director, Floriculture.

The Tulip Garden was set up in 2008 during the regime of then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad. The garden was set up to draw more tourists to the valley during the spring season. Last year, the garden was included in the World Book of Records (London) as Asia’s Largest Tulip Garden.