Wicked Tulips Flower Farm is hands-down the best place to go tulip picking in Rhode Island– and likely all of New England. Every spring, you can pick tulips at this magical flower farm in Exeter, Rhode Island while strolling amongst the bright, cheerful rows of tulips with joyous, carefree abandon. It’s a lovely hidden gem that offers one of my favorite Rhode Island activities: tulip picking in the springtime.
As the largest U-pick flower farm in New England, Wicked Tulips Flower Farm is a bucket-list destination in its own right– but it’s also an absolute must for tulip lovers. The breeds and variety of tulips available at this farm are super unique (and we’ve visited our fair share of U-Pick tulip farms).
As of this writing, tickets are $20 a person. Each ticket comes with 10 U-pick tulips, which you can pick from any field on-site at their Exeter farm location. (They also have a second location in Preston, CT that operates the same way.)
Additional tulip stems sell for $1 a pop (so you can pick as many as you want to pay for), and any straggler bulbs that you may uproot when picking the tulips can be returned at the flower-wrapping station on your way out. (They’ll use them again to plan next year’s crop.)
Here’s what you can expect if you want to go tulip picking at this beautiful Rhode Island farm:
Dazzling U-Pick Tulips in Every Color, Size, and Shape
With cheeky tulip varieties like “Dow Jones” (a crimson red tulip with yellow borders) and “Antarctica” (a bright white-yellow) growing on-site, there’s a lot of variety to choose from.
There are feathery purple parrot tulips and classic pink, quintessentially “Easter”-like tulips. Some tulips are aptly named “Pink Impressionist”, as they wouldn’t feel out of place in a Rembrandt painting.
Pink lovers will enjoy the variegated two-tone parrot tulips and tulips that look like peonies. There’s even one called “Surrender”, a feeling that naturally takes root as you exhale in awe of the farm’s beauty.
Ultimately, what makes this tulip farm unique is not only the variety and layout of the flower feilds, but also the fact that the colors reveal their magic only once you get up close to each row.
Strolling through the fields with a basket for picking feels like a scene from The Sound of Music! (Except the backdrop is old-growth New England forest, rather than Alpine mountains and wildflowers. You get the idea. 🙂 ) You can’t see the tulips from the road, but once you wander into the beds, basket in hand, the magic really unfolds.
A Gorgeous Spring Adventure
Ultimately, whether you’re a newcomer to tulip-picking or just looking for a fun outdoor adventure in the spring, Wicked Tulips is worth the trip. While pets are not allowed (tulips are poisonous to dogs!), photography is welcome and encouraged, and strollers are welcome.
Wicked Tulips also offers unique ticketed events like Yoga in the Tulips, which is exactly what it sounds like. Join skilled local yoga instructors and fellow yogis for a sunset or sunrise yoga practice in the tulips– just be sure to bring your own mat!
Classes, of course, are weather permitting, and you need to purchase tickets in advance. (Yoga-lovers, add this to your bucket list!)
All of this, of course, is why tickets sell out so quickly each year.
The tulip picking season is short– usually lasting only about two weeks towards the middle-end of April– and the farm sells timed tickets to prevent over-crowding.
Weekend tickets tend to sell out first, and they only go on sale with a few days notice.
Accordingly, interested folks should sign up for Wicked Tulips’ email updates to get notified when the fields about to bloom.
Each year, the farm sends out a link with tickets once they know the bloom dates, and after that– like the ephemeral beauty of tulip season itself– they are gone.
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Other Cool Things to Do Nearby
Before or after your visit to the Exeter tulip fields, consider visiting the charming cafe and coffee shop Sophie’s Brewhouse. They make wonderful coffee, light lunch fare like sandwiches, wraps, and espresso drinks, and luscious baked goods like the recent Maple Bacon Pancake Squares with Maple Buttercream Frosting and Candied Bacon on top. Yowza!
For a more formal lunch or dinner, visit Back 40 (for American craft food and great cocktails) or the taphouse at Tilted Barn Brewery, which offers Rhode Island’s first farm-to-tap beer.
Nearby Hallene Farm, meanwhile, is a popular 5th-generation farm stand that sells produce and other locally-forged sundries. (They also sell veggie plants, annual/perennial flowers, fresh produce from the farm, and more.)
^ The farm stand opens beginning in May. That’s generally after Tulip season, but you might be able to catch them if you visit on the tail end of the tulip season. Enjoy it while it lasts!
For more information about Wicked Tulips Flower Farm and when to go tulip picking in Rhode Island, go here. It’s a bucket list activity we can’t recommend enough.
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Related: We love picking sunflowers at this gorgeous Rhode Island Sunflower Farm.
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