Van der Salm Bulb Farm, Inc.
Gerard (Jerry) van der Salm immigrated to the United States of America with his family from Holland in 1980. He chose to move to the Pacific Northwest for the rich soils, temperate climate and due to the history of the modern lily hybrid in this part of America. There is a great history of lilies here in the Pacific Northwest, beginning with the birth of the modern hybrid lily more than 80 years ago and continuing today as we carry on that tradition.
The van der Salm Family has been involved with growing lilies commercially for over 40 years now. In Holland there are many uncles and cousins working in the bulb industry, most on their own farms. This direct connection to the Dutch market and our relationships with the bulbs brokers in the Netherlands, allows us to stay in touch with the new trends in products, equipment, and techniques.
Our commercial lily and peony growing is done in the Columbia Basin in Eastern Oregon. During the harvest, these crops are trucked to our home farm in Woodland, Washington, where we process each variety. Bulbs are separated by size, visually checked for quality and health, counted to the correct quantity per tray, and then packed for storage. Our peonies are cut to size, counted, and packed, all carefully by hand.
At our Woodland location we have approximately 15,000 square feet of cold room storage space. In these coolers we can store each product at its ideal holding temperature. These not only allow us to ship our lilies year around, it also allows us to import Chilean and Dutch lilies, tulips and Dutch Iris.
The home farm is where we grow our hostas, dahlias, crocosmias, and hemerocallis. We also grow smaller quantities of ismene, aconitum, dicentra, and astilbe. While we are not currently hybridizing new lilies, we do still have a selection of seedlings that we are testing and expanding. This will allow us to introduce new varieties into the coming decade.