DeGoede Bulb Farm History

Welcome to Mossyrock! This is the fourth generation of flower growers in our family. The first two were in Holland, starting with great grandfather John DeGoede. His son John Jr. continued the tradition of flower growing in Holland and then our father Henry DeGoede started his own farm in Mt. Vernon, Washington, in 1951.

In 1976 our family began the process of moving our farm to Mossyrock, Washington, where Henry DeGoede, his two sons Jack and Bob, and grandson Alex operate the farm today.

In Mt. Vernon we grew primarily just bulbs, including tulips, Dutch iris, and daffodils, along with rotation crops such as peas and corn, and a few acres of perennial flowering plants. We also had several greenhouses. Our reasons for moving to Mossyrock were to consolidate our farm, which was in several widely spaced locations in Mt. Vernon, and to mechanize our harvesting of bulbs, which at that time required a lighter type of soil as we found in Mossyrock.

As it turned out, moving to Mossyrock caused us to change our operation considerably. We grow bulbs and perennials on about 300 of the 500 acres in Mossyrock and the rest is forested or leased out to Christmas tree growers. We expanded our greenhouse production from about ¼-acre in Mt. Vernon to about 4 acres in Mossyrock and supply plants for several chain stores, including Fred Meyer and Safeway, besides other garden centers and school and church fundraisers. We ship potted bulbs, potted perennials, hanging baskets, and poinsettias. We continue to grow tulips and Dutch iris but now grow more perennial flowering plants than bulbs, including bleeding hearts, phlox, hosta, and many others. Also, local people began coming to our farm requesting flowers, so we gradually developed a retail garden center. All this involved a lot of trials as far as crops go including carrots, vegetable seeds, cut flowers, rhododendrons, etc.

Moving our farm was a lot more difficult than we ever imagined! But God has blessed us a great deal in all the ups and downs of the process and hopefully we are more aware than ever that we can do nothing at all without God’s help. To thank the Lord we have erected a fifty-foot concrete cross on a hill on our farm, along with an inspirational trail and prayer chapel which is open to the public in daylight hours. We hope this will encourage others to keep in mind how much God has blessed all of us in this country and will continue to bless us if we seek Him in our lives. There is a flyer available in the garden center with pictures and more information about the cross and chapel.

God Bless you,

The DeGoede Family

Original tulip stand.