It’s half-term for Flemish schoolchildren, though due to the reforms their Francophone peers will need to wait many more weeks for a break. In Flanders and its capital Brussels this annual half-term holiday is known as the “Crocus Holiday”. To admire crocuses at their best you could do a lot worse than visiting the Botanical Garden in Leuven, capital of Flemish Brabant Province.
A magnificent blanket of purple greets visitors to the Botanical Garden in Leuven, the oldest botanical garden, not only in Flanders, but also in Belgium as a whole. The garden was laid out in 1738 by Leuven University for the benefit of medicine students. In 1835 the university handed the garden over to the City of Leuven. Today, you will find a diverse collection of plants and herbs here, including the beautiful crocus collection.
Jan Van Dyck, the director of Leuven Gardens, won’t be drawn on the exact number of crocuses that are in bloom today, but their number exceeds 100,000: “The collection is centred on the crocus tommasinianus or early crocus. The early crocus spreads easily. We always let the flowers bloom for as long as possible to allow the seeds to spread. That means that after 3 or 4 years you have new, flowering crocus plants”.
Jan’s been working with Leuven Gardens for over three decades: “They used to bloom at the start of March, but in recent years it’s getting earlier and earlier. Today the first crocuses already appear at the start of February! It’s the result of warmer winters", he says.
The blanket of purple is attracting more and more visitors, keen to take snaps, to the Botanical Garden. “The crocuses are at their most beautiful on sunny afternoons. This is also the Crocus Holiday, so what better time to visit the garden!” Jan concludes.