FOUR seasons in 45 days! I have just arrived back from an overseas holiday to see family in Holland and gardens everywhere.

So how did I manage the four seasons in such a short time? Leaving here towards the end of April, the leaves were just changing into their wonderful autumn mantle of rich colours.

Arriving in Holland it was mid-spring with the emerging green leaves, spring blossoms and stunning floral displays, especially the mind-blowing show of tulips at the annual show at the Keukenhof Gardens.

Then on to England, through France to Italy in June for their start of summer before returning home for winter.

FOR a moment, forget winter and let me transport you to Holland (the flower house of Europe), starting with the world’s largest and most beautiful flower garden and the showcase for Dutch floriculture, the Keukenhof Gardens, south-east of Amsterdam.

It features more than seven million daffodil, tulip and hyacinth bulbs in full bloom over a period of eight weeks provided by 85 bulb growers.

In that time, more than 800,000 garden lovers visit the gardens with more than 75 per cent coming from overseas.

The name Keukenhof originally described the herb or kitchen garden of the 15th century Teylingen Castle, owned by Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria. At that time the surrounding area was wild scrub land and dunes.

The flower show started in 1949 when, as Holland recovered from the ravages of World War II, a group of bulb growers decided to brighten people’s lives with an open-air exhibition of spring flowers in the park of the Keukenhof estate.

This year the theme was “United Kingdom – Land of Great Gardens”. The UK is an important trading partner with the Netherlands, in terms of flower exports and tourism. What’s more Keukenhof itself was originally designed, surprisingly, as an English landscape garden. The main feature was an impressive floral mosaic of Big Ben and the Tower Bridge.

WHERE do all the bulbs from Holland go? Exports alone are worth a staggering 681 euros ($A953 million) with the UK accounting for $A64 million, Germany $A105 million, France $A42 million, Russia $A42 million, China $A59 million, Japan $A42 million and the US $A154 million.

Every town has flower stalls as does, seemingly, every main street in Holland, with the flowers being purchased through the famous Dutch auctions.

Then there are their huge – and I mean huge – garden centres. For example, at Halsteren, a delightful country town of 13,000 in south Holland where our daughter Yvette lives, the Intratuin Garden Centre sells Australian boronias with the label in the shape of Australia or 200-year-old olive trees and every variety of plant in between.

I am a frequent visitor to this centre – by no means Holland’s largest – and still cannot get over its size. One time I counted 500 shopping trolleys at the entrance and commented to a salesperson this was a lot of trolleys. “See the space next to the trolleys,” the salesperson replied. “That’s where another 500 sit that are already in circulation within the garden centre”.

The total area of the centre is six hectares (15 acres) with 800 parking places, one million loyal customers a year with annual sales of more than $A28 million. That is big by anyone’s imagination and is just one of many such garden centres all over Holland; the Dutch love their flowers.

This is just a glimpse at the flower industry in the world’s largest producers of flowers and, indeed, one of the world’s largest producer of trees and shrubs, but that is another story.

Back to cold Canberra winter gardens next week.