Tulips in bloom for the start of the Canadian Tulip Festival

Tourist flock to Canadian Tulip Festival This is peak season for Ottawa tulips and the city's tourists can't get enough of them. CTV's Peter Szperling reports.

There is a sea of colours in tulip beds across the city of Ottawa, as the Canadian Tulip Festival kicks off this weekend.

The popular event displaying tens of thousands of tulips at Commissioners Park, the official site for the annual festival.

"This is the first time in Ottawa; came mostly for the Tulip Festival," says Rajani Karki, who is visiting with her family from Brampton.

"We live in the Glebe and I’ve lived around the Tulip Festival for the past several years, so we can (visit) almost every day during Tulip Festival," said Merith Calkin-Brown.

Calkin-Brown and her partner had their first date in the park, got engaged in the park, and "now we have our little baby here!"

The tulips are in bloom just in time for Mother's Day weekend.

"Such a treat to come here for Mother’s Day," says Roshani Harripersad, who is visiting with her family from Toronto. "And I wanted to come and see the Tulip Festival for the first time, after 35 years in Canada."

With picture-perfect weather expected throughout this weekend, Commissioners Park is certainly a popular place for photographers and Plein-Air painters to capture the moment and the colours.

"There’s orange, yellow, lilac - it’s great," said Paul Saindon, an artist who was painting on Friday afternoon.

It’s also the perfect background for taking portraits.

"The flowers are so beautiful," said Ling Liu, who was modelling.

The tulips are a tradition in Ottawa since the end of World War II. The tulips have since bloomed into the largest public tulip display in the world, according to the Canadian Tulip Festival.

"Seven thousand five hundred of our Canadian soldiers didn’t make it home in the fight for the liberation of the Netherlands, and that’s why the Netherlands gives us these tulips every year," Jo Riding, executive director of the Canadian Tulip Festival, said.

The National Capital Commission plants more than one million tulips each year throughout the national capital region. It’s a big draw for visitors.

"Absolutely, we’ve noticed this year is probably twice as busy on bookings, on the tour bus arrival, even our tulip shuttle had to upgrade to a double-decker because of how many people are planning to come down," Riding said.

There will be no fireworks display during the May long weekend.

"So, this year we’ve replaced our traditional Victoria Day fireworks with a nightly sound and light show, that happens every night for 11 nights from 9:15 (p.m.) until 9:25 - free on the Dow’s Lake boardwalk."

There are plenty of other events during the day and evenings at the Canadian Tulip Festival.

However, the star attraction is the tulips.

The festival runs daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. until May 22.  Admission is free.