Manic 24-hour turnaround by volunteers to replace ‘battered and fried’ tulips for Spalding Flower Parade

Saturday’s Spalding Flower Parade was an eyecatching event - thanks in part to a manic 24-hour turnaround by volunteers to replace the many tulips that had been ‘battered’ by recent weather conditions.

Despite tens of thousands of revellers enjoying the weekend’s festivities, some critics took to social media to question the lack of flowers appearing on some floats.

However, organiser Stephen Timewell has revealed that his team worked tirelessly to create and pin replacements after heavy rain and hot spells put paid to original plans.

“We knew the tulips would be a problem because the weather and climate had been disastrous for them, so we were very short on tulips,” he explained.

“They weren’t at their best when we picked them, so on top of all the work the volunteers had to do we turned around to them and said ‘look, we have a lack of tulips, you have to make something up to fill the gaps.

“This was another job they had to contend with.”

The parade’s tulips are donated by Norfolk-based bulb growers PJ Ward, who allow parade volunteers to take the flowers’ heads when their displays come to an end.

But this year the elements were not in the parade’s favour.

Click here for the latest coverage of the Spalding Flower Parade.

“People don’t necessarily understand the cycle of the tulips, they think we can just go outside and magically appear with 20 million tulips and they suddenly pin themselves on the float,” Stephen added.

“The thing is they got battered by the rain and cold. They got flooded out and half of them drowned, then all of a sudden the sun came out, fried them all and the petals dropped off.

“When we got the tulips a lot of them were shrivelled up and didn’t look very nice. The volunteers had 24 hours to fill the gaps in with alternate materials.

“We don’t get many negatives, and those who are negative are nowhere to be seen when we’re asking for volunteers.”