Bloom Is Off Daffodil Farming -- Puyallup's Proud Festival Symbol Being Plowed Under By Growth

PUYALLUP - Each spring, for nearly half a century, civic leaders here have dutifully crowned a Daffodil Queen and cleared the streets in preparation for Pierce County's biggest event: the annual Daffodil Festival.

This month's daffodil parade boasts all the usual attractions. There's just one detail missing: The crop the festival is supposed to honor has all but disappeared here.

Of the nearly 40 daffodil farms that once stretched across the Puyallup Valley, only two, the VanLierop Bulb Farm and Knutson Farms Inc., are in operation today.

Cindi VanLierop, a fourth-generation bulb farmer, said tourists still call asking where to see the spectacular yellow fields for which the valley is renowned.

"I say, `Don't come here,' " she said. "I have to explain what's happened."

What has happened is that the fields - which once formed a solid carpet of blooms stretching halfway to Mount Rainier - have succumbed one by one to warehouses, subdivisions and, in one case, a golf course.

Once the top daffodil-producing region in the state, the Puyallup Valley has been eclipsed by the Skagit Valley, which now dominates the state in bulb production. Farmers say pressure to develop there has not been so intense.

Puyallup Valley farmers blame competition from abroad and new regulations for driving many out of business. The Dutch, in particular, are blamed for the downfall of the industry by flooding American markets with bulbs and flying in cut flowers to sell in East Coast cities.

"At the end of the year, our expenses are here . . . ," explained Neil VanLierop, Cindi's father, jabbing a hand in the air, "and our income is here," he adds, placing the other hand a hair above the first. "That's what we call a successful year."

It's no surprise so many of their neighbors have left the business, added Cindi VanLierop.

"A developer will come to them and say, `Here's $4 million for your land.' Of course they're going to take it," she said.

Recognizing that daffodil farms were disappearing, Pierce County in 1985 asked voters to approve a $15 million plan to preserve farmland through the purchase of development rights. The proposal was voted down.

The slow death of the Puyallup daffodils coincides with the 100-year anniversary of Washington's daffodil industry, said Puyallup resident Charles Gould, a plant pathologist and professor emeritus at Washington State University.

Gould is writing a history of bulb farming in this state and, with regret, has watched the yellow fields dwindle.

"It hurts," he said. "All that good farmland, gone."

Flowers were once so prevalent in the Puyallup Valley that during the Depression, bulbs were used as currency, said Neil VanLierop. His father, one of many Dutch immigrants in the valley, received wages in bulbs when working on nearby farms.

Today, Roger Knutson of Knutson Farms said life among the newly built suburbs isn't easy.

His new neighbors object to the smell of manure he uses to fertilize fields, and traffic-clogged roads make it hard to move equipment.

"We used to be out here by ourselves," he said. Now "we have motorcycles driving through our fields, and people complaining about noise," he said.

Knutson, who produces 15 million daffodils a year and sets aside about a million of them for Daffodil Parade floats, is pragmatic about the eventual death of the bulb industry here. He says he will someday sell the 700-acre farm to a developer.

"In a way, it does make me sad," he said. "But that's progress."

Neil VanLierop said he hasn't ruled out selling his farm someday. But he hopes to keep it going as long as possible.

And despite the tough times, he said, daffodils haven't lost their allure.

"It's something about yellow daffodils," he said, wading ankle deep among the flowers. "People don't want white ones, they don't want mixed colors, they just want yellow daffodils. It's just magic." --------------------------------------------------------------- Flowerfests

-- April 18: Puyallup Junior Parade. -- April 25: Puyallup Grand Parade, 1 p.m. -- April 3-19: Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, La Conner and Mount Vernon. -- For information:

Puyallup Daffodil Festival Office, 627-6176.

Skagit Tulip Festival Hotline, 1-800-4-TULIPS. ---------------------------------------------------------------