After accidentally ordering 4,000 tulip bulbs, Eeva-Maria now grows cut tulips on an old farm

A happy accident. That’s one way to describe the chain of events that began three years ago, sparking a small-scale tulip farming venture. Eeva-Maria Lampikari was at the children’s hospital waiting to see her son after surgery. There was nothing to worry about, so she passed the time by ordering tulip bulbs online—something she’d been planning for a while, as she had her sights set on at least 2,000 bulbs.

Then, in the early days of exploring organic tulip farming methods, her phone’s internet connection began to falter. Eeva‑Maria thought the payment hadn’t gone through and asked her husband to place another order, just in case. Later they discovered both orders had succeeded. Eeva‑Maria shrugged: “Well, let it be!”

Then the post brought the boxes home: four thousand bulbs. But Eeva‑Maria had no regrets; she already had a plan.

Eeva-Maria approaches flower farming with a playful spirit, growing blooms both for sale and for her own delight. The long-stemmed, double-petalled, dark ‘Black Hero’ is a late variety.

Eeva-Maria lives with her family in Lohja, about 50 kilometres northwest of Helsinki. Their home is an old farm, although farming ended there long ago.

Eeva-Maria works as a school counsellor and is studying to become a psychotherapist. In her spare time she grows cut flowers, joining the line of farmers who once worked this land—a thought that feels good to her.

“This land is producing again—even if now it’s flowers,” she says.

Eeva-Maria is drawn to working on nature’s terms. You can’t control it, but you can enjoy its gifts.

Her flower farm is called Vieno Garden. Eeva-Maria describes it more as play than business. Unlike the professional farmers who preceded her, she doesn’t rely on it for her livelihood—and play, she says, is something adults shouldn’t give up.

The flower beds greet visitors as soon as you arrive. The red-and-white building is the old barn.

Plant tulips close together and a small area can yield a generous harvest. The long stems support one another.

Physical work is good for desk workers—as long as you respect your limits. “I try to keep this a one-woman operation,” Eeva-Maria says.

There’s an old barn on the property. Eeva-Maria has found a new purpose for it, converting the end rooms into an atmospheric studio where she stores and prepares flowers for sale—and sometimes simply enjoys arranging them.

Inside, the barn is cool and dim. Once your eyes adjust, you can make out huge armfuls of tulips in round glass vases on the side tables.

A small window casts light onto the workbench. On it lie brown wrapping paper, scissors, knives, pencils and white labels. Next to them stands a row of small vases, each holding a different bouquet of white daffodils, purple lilacs and pink tulips.

Under one table sits an old concrete trough, a reminder of the barn’s past. Eeva-Maria thinks it once served as a drinking trough for animals. Now it overflows with white, double tulips.

Along the wall stand varieties that bloom at different times, some already fading. The grey pots hold ‘Apricot Beauty’ and ‘Angelique’ among others. The perky seedlings in enamel basins are gladioli.

In addition to cut tulips, the garden has perennial borders where bulb flowers are free to naturalise.

The former barn is now a cosy workspace and pop-up shop. Its beautiful, lively wall surface emerged simply by scraping away old layers of paint.

Eeva-Maria is a member of Slow Flowers Finland, an association of small-scale cut-flower growers around the country.

Eeva-Maria is enchanted by her cut flowers—and no wonder. She marvels at how sowing a seed or planting a bulb can create something so beautiful. To her it’s beyond miraculous.

That wasn’t always the case, though. In the beginning Eeva-Maria thought tulips were a bit dull and bland. Then she visited Monosilla Garden in Siuntio [in Finnish] and saw Sannaliina Mononen’s open-field tulips. She realised they were a completely different story from what she was used to.

“The character, the splendour, and the staying power,” she says.

Eeva-Maria was hooked, and last autumn she planted 2,000 tulip bulbs; the year before that she planted as many as 7,000.

‘Apricot Beauty’ is a delicately simple tulip whose hue truly recalls apricot. It flowers for a long time and holds up well as a cut flower.

The vase holds lilac, bridalwreath spirea and midsummer rose branches alongside tulips. The apricot-coloured tulip is ‘Apricot Beauty’ and the dark one is ‘Black Hero’.

Eeva-Maria put an extra bed frame to use, turning it into a playful tulip bed in the garden.

Now, in two‑meter‑wide raised beds, long-stemmed, sturdy tulips are growing. At the start of the season Eeva-Maria loves the creak their stems make. Some tulips are already in full bloom, while the latest varieties—like the simple, elegant French ‘Menton’—are still swelling their buds.

Eeva-Maria favours soft hues, especially apricot and salmon shades, with several whites as well. Her current favourite, however, is the very dark-flowered ‘Black Hero’.

“It’s simply stunning with its long stem and double blossoms,” she says.

What Eeva-Maria values in tulips is the wealth of varieties and how different they are from one another. Growing them outdoors, she feels, gives the flowers extra character.

“Even in a vase they keep changing, growing and living,” she adds.

The beds are mulched with straw, which suppresses weeds and keeps the soil moist.

The tulip beds sit in a sunny spot. Frost arrives here earlier than in the surrounding areas, and frosty nights linger longer.

After harvest, store tulips in a dark, cool place so they last as long as possible.

Eeva-Maria farms organically. For soil nutrition she uses a hot composter and brings in horse manure from a nearby stable. Straw mulch keeps the soil moist and weeds at bay.

Flower farming is a lot of work, but it isn’t year-round, nor is the entire growing season equally intense, she says. Even so, many evenings and weekends find her among the flowers—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Lately a playful slogan has been running through Eeva-Maria’s mind: “Talk garden to me.” She chats about gardens and flowers with friends and believes that a connection to nature and the garden benefits everyone—as long as you avoid needless striving. In nature, she says, you can sense something bigger than yourself.

“Nature was here before us and will be here after us,” she says.

Wild native plants mingle with spring bulbs on the garden slope—a combination Eeva-Maria loves.