The growing, propagation, cultivation, auctioning, trading of flowers and plants. The important role of the Netherlands on the world market has been built up in around a hundred years. The flower trade includes pot and bedding plants, bulbs, shrubs and cut flowers.
Practitioners and stakeholders are cultivators, growers, traders and florists.
In the seventeenth century, the tulip that was originally not found in the Netherlands was at the cradle of flower and plant culture. In the twentieth century, with the use of aircraft, trade is expoding worldwide. By improving cultivation and other techniques, it was possible to harvest more and larger bulb crops in the Netherlands than under natural conditions and an export sector was created.
