Every first Sunday of September, flower fever takes hold in Zundert, a village in the southern Netherlands, as the annual Zundert Flower Parade, or Bloemencorso Zundert, winds through the village streets.

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These floats don't hold pop stars or cartoon characters, like the big holiday parades in America. Instead, these massive works of art are decorated with dahlias, which are spiky, large, colorful flowers that bloom from summer into the first fall frost.

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All the dahlias used on the floats are grown locally on 80-plus acres of fields surrounding Zundert. The dahlias are grown solely for the parade, and not for the commercial market.

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Other than using the decorative flower, which became a tradition during the 1960s, floats don't have to follow a theme. Design teams have free reign to tell whatever story they wish, as long as the end product is no larger than 62 feet long, 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide.

Although there's no set theme, the floats are often inspired by nature and animals. You can see this year's wildly imaginative floats in the slideshow above. You can also see video of the floats in action at this link.

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