First-ever Harrison Tulip Festival Blossoms for Spring 2024

If you loved the Chilliwack Tulip Festival and Tulips of the Valley,
its founders the Onos Family present the biggest, best version ever: 10 million bulbs strong

The BC farming family who pioneered the province’s most beloved flower festivals is thrilled to launch the new Harrison Tulip Festival, sprouting from the fertile ground of Agassiz (near Harrison Hot Springs) — just as soon as spring weather permits. (Opening date is dependent on the bloom cycle, with exact dates to be announced closer to the opening, most likely in April.) The festival will run for approximately four weeks, creating endless opportunities for capturing spring photos, memories, and experiences while tiptoeing around the tulips.

“Flower Festival Queen” Kate Onos-Gilbert and her family pioneered floral agritourism in the Fraser Valley in 2006 when they launched Tulips of the Valley on Seabird Island just east of Agassiz. After 10 highly successful years there, they shifted the festival to Chilliwack, on leased land, where the Chilliwack Tulip Festival first bloomed in 2017 and the Chilliwack Sunflower Festival in 2018. Since then, the family has acquired its own farmland in Agassiz, in the Harrison River Valley, “returning to our roots where the flower magic first bloomed,” says Onos-Gilbert. Flower enthusiasts flocked to the stunning new location last summer, for the Harrison Sunflower Festival.

So, the “inaugural” Harrison Tulip Festival is, in fact, a homecoming for the event, as well as the 18th annual tulip festival organized by the Onos family! The most colourful spring celebration in the province promises 35 acres to explore with 10 million tulip, double daffodil and hyacinth bulbs planted, including more than 50 tulip varieties, 15 double daffodil varieties, and a dozen varieties of hyacinths. A spectacular two-acre show garden features mature fruit and nut trees, flowering shrubs and grassy pathways brightened by thousands of tulips, hyacinths, and fritillaria, a new bloom that promises to be the debuting belle of this year’s festival. To top it off, the unmistakable vista of Mount Cheam returns as the stunning backdrop to it all.

Create family or group portraits that hearken back to simple and beautiful times, with photo opportunities that include swing sets, antique tractors and horse carts, vintage bicycles, a 1950s convertible, a 1965 Airstream trailer, plus raised platforms that make staging photos easy.

Two food trucks will be onsite daily, offering food for purchase, including authentic Dutch stroopwafels that cleverly evoke tulips’ storied homeland. A farm store also offers souvenirs, fresh cut and potted flowers, and refreshments for purchase.

The Harrison Tulip Festival acknowledges and is honoured to be located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Cheam, Sts’ailes, Sq’éwlets and Seabird Island Peoples.

About Onos Farms and Festivals
The Onos family are Fraser Valley agritourism pioneers, shining light on the area’s integral role in BC farming. In 2006, they debuted Tulips of the Valley in Agassiz, the first flower festival of its kind in BC. After 10 highly successful years there, they shifted it to Chilliwack, where the Chilliwack Tulip Festival first bloomed in 2017 and the Chilliwack Sunflower Festival sprouted up in 2018. In 2023, the Onos family proudly purchased their own land in Agassiz and moved this bouquet of seasonal farm festivals back to their roots.

Onos Greenhouses, the family’s sister company, currently supplies 85% of the cut tulips that are sold throughout Western Canada. Look for fresh cut Onos tulips and hyacinths in a store near you. harrisontulipfest.com

Media release and images provided by Morgan Sommerville, Serena PR.