Lisse, 6 May 2025 – Spring reaches its colourful crescendo at Keukenhof with a striking floral display by JUB Holland: a bold bulb planting designed as a colourful still life. Titled A Mysterious Dutch Still Life, this year’s theatrical border was created by garden and landscape designer Carien van Boxtel. Rich in detail, the design invites visitors to zoom in and explore, challenging the eye and sparking the imagination. Van Boxtel drew inspiration from the 17th-century still lifes of Willem van Aelst – a master of asymmetry, chiaroscuro and poetic stillness.

In a Keukenhof season where seven million flower bulbs burst into bloom across 32 hectares in an eight-week botanical spectacle, JUB Holland once again stands out with a distinctive planting vision. “As one of Keukenhof’s earliest contributors and located just down the road in Noordwijkerhout, we see the park not only as an international showcase, but also as a practical test garden,” says Robbert Uittenbogaard, Director of JUB Holland.

“It’s where we present our newest mixes and demonstrate how flower bulb designs can be artistic, thoughtful, and enduringly attractive in public landscapes.”

A Design Like a Painting

Since 2019, Carien van Boxtel has been the creative force behind JUB’s Keukenhof borders. Recently named an RHS Bulb Expert, she pushed her own boundaries this year with a daring colour palette of deep red, gold, yellow, and porcelain white. The planting is still in full bloom now, featuring dark-toned tulips such as ‘Sarah Raven’, ‘Queen Rania’, the fiery Tulipa acuminata, the painterly ‘Rem’s Favourite’, and the late-blooming Narcissus poeticus recurvus. The composition immediately evokes the drama of the Dutch Masters. “It’s like composing with time,” Van Boxtel explains. 

“I treat flowering moments like notes on a score – a slow crescendo, culminating now, in this final week, in a visual climax.”

Planting as an Art Form

What makes the design truly remarkable is not only its aesthetic power, but also its layered complexity. Van Boxtel plays with height variations, architectural structure, and uses the foliage of anemones and daffodils, as well as the seed pods of Fritillaria persica and Fritillaria imperialis, to create rhythm and rest. “Sometimes you need to ‘cool down’ the flowers with green,” she explains. “So the whole composition breathes – almost like a pointillist wildflower meadow.”
In doing so, the focus shifts beyond the plants themselves to the craft of planting: the interplay of form, colour, bloom time and context. The knowledge gained through these designs is directly translated by JUB Holland into applicable mixes for public green spaces – from urban verges to bespoke landscape projects.

From Show Border to Urban Green

Each year, JUB’s show designs are made commercially available after their Keukenhof debut. These unique bulb mixes are now widely used by landscape professionals across Europe. With carefully staggered bloom sequences and a focus on biodiversity, the designs are not only beautiful but also forward-thinking.

“A good bulb mix begins with flowering, but it only succeeds when everything comes together – the rhythm of the landscape, the maintenance, the biodiversity,” Uittenbogaard says. “That’s what we design – based on practical knowledge.” He adds, “We’re seeing that the story behind a design – the play of colour, bloom timing, the cultural theme – truly resonates with landscape architects, municipalities and green space managers. We want to inspire them and support them with ready-made solutions that are visually impactful and ecologically sound.”

One More Week of Full Glory

A Mysterious Dutch Still Life can still be viewed in full bloom at Keukenhof until Sunday 11 May. Just next to it, the Bulb Mania Mix – a collaborative border featuring bulbs and perennials co-developed by JUB Holland and Rijnbeek Perennials – is also in flower for the second year running. Behind the scenes, preparations for a new theme, a new story – and a new challenge – are already underway.