New Delhi: What was meant to be a vibrant spring attraction in the capital ended up disappointing many visitors this year as the flowers at the Delhi Tulip Festival dried up just days after blooming. Large sections of the famous tulip beds along Shanti Path were already bare by the time many Delhi residents arrived to see them.
The festival, organised by the New Delhi Municipal Council, was officially inaugurated on 23 February and scheduled to run until 10 March. However, by early March most of the flowers had already wilted. Visitors who came expecting colourful rows of blooms instead found dried stems and empty patches of soil under the rising spring heat.
The event had gained attention after Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta encouraged residents to enjoy tulips in the capital instead of travelling to Kashmir for photographs. Many people arrived dressed up for social media pictures, only to discover that the flowers had already faded.
The tulip display has become a regular part of Delhi’s preparations for major diplomatic gatherings. After the city hosted the 2023 G20 New Delhi Summit, the flowers were again used as a visual attraction during the recent AI Impact Summit. Delegates attending the summit managed to see the tulips while they were still in bloom, but the public viewing window turned out to be very short.
This year more than five lakh tulip bulbs were procured, with the majority imported from the Netherlands. Each imported bulb cost about ₹37, pushing the total spending close to ₹2 crore. According to officials, around 3.25 lakh bulbs were planted in NDMC areas, while nearly 1.92 lakh were supplied to the Delhi Development Authority for planting in parks and roundabouts.
Some tulips were also sourced domestically. About 20,750 bulbs were supplied by the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, while around 15,000 were developed locally at an incubation centre in Lodhi Garden.
Despite the effort, the flowers struggled against the city’s rising temperatures. Delhi recorded its hottest February in three years, and the first week of March saw the highest temperatures in nearly five decades. Tulips, which naturally grow in colder climates, require prolonged winter chill to bloom properly.
Gardeners working along Shanti Path said the bulbs were planted later than usual this year, in early January instead of mid-December. As a result, the flowering period coincided with warmer weather, causing the blooms to dry up quickly. Tulips usually take about a month to flower and ideally remain in bloom for only a few weeks even under favourable conditions.
When visitors arrived in early March, they found only dried plants left behind. Gardeners working at the site said many people came hoping to take photographs but left disappointed when they saw empty beds instead of flowers.
The scale of the festival has increased rapidly in recent years. The experiment began in 2017–18 with just 17,000 bulbs. Since then, the number has grown steadily—from around 62,800 bulbs in 2021 to more than 5.17 lakh bulbs this year.
Maintaining the display requires significant labour. Around 40 to 50 gardeners work along the Shanti Path stretch during the tulip season, which adds several weeks of extra work for planting, watering, and replacing damaged plants.
The project has also attracted criticism from environmental activists who argue that importing large quantities of flowers for a short-lived display increases the city’s carbon footprint. Officials, however, say the festival helps beautify public spaces and offers residents access to high-quality horticultural displays.
To reduce dependence on imports, NDMC established a cold-storage and propagation facility known as the Tulip House in Lodhi Garden in 2023. The centre stores bulbs before planting and attempts to reuse them after the blooming season ends.
However, the facility has limited capacity. It can store only about 50,000 bulbs and propagate around 2,000 more under controlled conditions. Many bulbs also fail to survive reuse due to heat and storage challenges.
In a separate effort to promote domestic cultivation, scientists from the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology have been working with farmers in colder Himalayan regions such as Lahaul and Spiti. After the flowering season ends in Delhi, many bulbs are sent to these high-altitude areas where natural winter conditions help them regain size and strength.
Researchers say the process is slow and may take up to three years before smaller bulbs become large enough to flower again. Even with these efforts, experts estimate it may take 10 to 12 years to reduce India’s dependence on imported bulbs by about 20 to 25 percent.
Back on Shanti Path, however, the festival’s colourful moment has already passed. By the time the official closing date approached, the tulip beds had mostly been cleared, leaving gardeners to remove the dried plants and prepare the soil for the next planting season. For many Delhi residents who came hoping to see fields of vibrant flowers, the festival had already ended before they even arrived.