Why This Dutch Village Puts Dahlias in a Concrete Mixer

The entire village of Sint Jansklooster in the Netherlands is gearing up for its annual flower parade, which starts Friday. All the parade groups are working hard on their floats, and no fewer than four million dahlias are being picked and divided among them.

The village is aiming for a future-proof parade: every float-building club now has its own dahlia field, so they can largely supply themselves, with the remaining flowers shared through partnerships with parades across the country. Wet weather nearly spoiled things and delayed the picking, but on Tuesday afternoon the first harvest finally happened - more than 40,000 dahlias per field, carried to the builders by cattle trucks.

But between picking and pinning the flowers into the floats sits one crucial step: dahlias do not come in every colour the designers want. In large 'flower laboratories', people in white suits coat the blooms with colour powder. The designer of one float wanted blue flowers, explains a lab worker. The problem? Blue dahlias do not exist. 'So we put the flowers in a concrete mixer, add colour powder, and they come out blue.'