There’s a carnival of color right now in Portland.

Oakdale Park, which was heavily blanketed in snow just a short time ago, is now ablaze in vivid color. Tulips are everywhere. Leaden skies from the dark days of winter have been chased away by the vitality of color and the beauty of the lighter days of spring.

The park is a triangular piece of land near the University of Southern Maine campus. The busy thoroughfares of Brighton and Deering avenues and Falmouth Street surround the park, creating a considerable amount of traffic. But in the middle of brilliant red, pink, purple, orange, yellow and white tulips, you don’t notice the traffic. It’s serene.

The tulips are in full bloom now, so bring a camp chair, a book, a thermos of iced tea and a sandwich if you want quiet time. Bring your whole family and a camera to get the photos of a lifetime. Kneeling down in the grass to take the pictures will yield excellent results, with the added benefit of feeling the soft spring grass underneath. There are comfortable park benches if you just want a colorful moment.

These gorgeous flowers have long been revered for their beauty. Treasured first by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire, tulips were the focus of a flourishing mania in the Netherlands. The phenomenon became so intense that prized “broken” bulbs, which produced striped, multicolored flowers, were sold for exorbitant prices and haggled over in covert business dealings. Seen as symbols of abundance and holiness, tulips have captured the imagination of writers and painters for centuries.

Last year’s movie “Tulip Fever,” with Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, Jack O’Connell and Holliday Grainger, gives you a cinematic glimpse of love and the crazy 17th-century Amsterdam tulip bulb market.

Today a visit to the tulip gardens of Keukenhof in the Netherlands will introduce you to the enormous varieties of tulips available and the splashy colors so prized in nature. I visited the Keukenhof gardens 10 years ago. Sadly, I did not plant the bulbs I had sent home deeply enough, and they became a tasty meal for squirrels. Now I get my tulip fix by walking to the nearby park.

Like the displays at Keukenhof, the tulips in Oakdale Park are grouped mainly by color in beds, making a panoramic impact. In the center there’s an imaginative color combination. In all, it’s a dizzying assemblage of pattern and color.

Tulips grow well in our Maine climate. If you plant in the fall and squirrels leave the bulbs alone, flowers return annually. They unexpectedly pop up by your back door, in long-forsaken gardens and as touches of color everywhere.

Tulips are magical. They lie buried and passive during the darkest and most unkind days. Strength is gained during this time. Then, one warm day, a silent but beautiful reminder of all that is good springs from its underground hideaway.

Go to Oakdale Park. See this gift of color.

 

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