On the basis of anecdotes, stories, occurrences and interviews Leslie Leijenhorst describes in Hortus Bulborum, treasury of historical bulbs the history of the remarkable bulb garden in the shade of the Protestant church in Limmen village, in the province of North-Holland (The Netherlands). Small and modest, but a unique piece
of Dutch cultural heritage, and second to none in the word. In this botanical treasury for over 75 years bulbs, often very old, come to bloom spring after spring.

Eighty years ago headmaster and horticultural teacher Pieter Boschman started collecting old tulip cultivars and species around his principal ’s house in Limmen village.
With increasing concern he saw how many historical bulb cultivars from this pre-eminently Dutch symbol were in serious danger of extinction, in the mid 1920s. Soon his spacious garden proved too small, as within a few years he already had collected over 400 different kinds of tulip and some daffodil cultivars. It was in the same period that Pieter Boschman came into contact with well-known hyacinth breeder Dr.Willem E. de Mol van Oud Loosdrecht, who had an impressive collection of historical hyacinths (after-1830). Nicolaas Blokker, an old friend of the headmaster, from the well-known Limmen firm of wholesale bulb growers and exporters Van ’t Hof & Blokker offered them a small plot on the grounds of his firm on which they could plant this valuable array of bulbs. The two devoted men decided to join their collections in 1928. The Hortus Bulborum (Latin for bulb garden) was born.