{"id":471,"date":"2019-04-17T17:44:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T00:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/?p=471"},"modified":"2019-04-17T17:58:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T00:58:29","slug":"471","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/17\/471\/","title":{"rendered":"I love freesias for many reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I love freesias for many reasons.<\/p>\n

\"yellow<\/a>
Photo by Kali Neri on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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First and foremost, they are a sense memory for me of my childhood. Much like violets (but that’s another post.)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Secondly, they have a robust and unforgettable aroma that I know with just my sense of smell, and I have yet to find any manufactured fragrance that smells even a bit close.<\/div>\n
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Thirdly,\u00a0freesias are a true spring flower. Once spring is gone, they are not available until the next year. (Or if they are, they are without the intense aroma that makes them unique.)<\/div>\n
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And, sadly, I am horrible at making them grow.<\/div>\n
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I have planted bulbs for them just about every year, and every year, I get a few paltry, weak-looking leaves and no stems. No buds. No flowers.<\/div>\n
I know it’s not watering because I get the daffodils and irises and tulips in the same bed. It’s something else.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, I have serious freesia envy whenever I see them in someone else’s garden. I will go OUT OF MY WAY to smell a freesia (which sometimes makes Handsome uncomfy since it means sneaking into someone’s yard!!)<\/div>\n
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Here’s a link if you want to try growing them yourself!<\/a><\/div>\n
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So, because mine droop, I have become a cut flower freesia junkie. All spring, I look every place I see a flower vendor for freesias. I smell them, and if I get that hit of memory, of care, I buy the freesias.<\/div>\n
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But the story doesn’t end there, because once you buy freesias, you have to take care of them every day or they will die prematurely. And they aren’t usually cheap.<\/div>\n
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So, here’s a few steps to help you figure out how to take care of your cut freesias, wherever you find them:<\/div>\n
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  • Align your freesias, so the blooms are all where you want them in a bunch.<\/li>\n
  • Cut the freesia stems on the diagonal so that the stems don’t sit at the bottom of the vase.<\/li>\n
  • Make sure nothing but stem will be under the water line<\/li>\n
  • Fill the vase a little more than halfway with room temperature water<\/li>\n
  • Put in your freesias<\/li>\n
  • Change the water and recut the stems every day or every other for longest life.<\/li>\n
  • Remove each spent (dead) flower when you change water to extend life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    P.S. I don’t use floral preservative, ever.<\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n
    I’d love to hear your stories about freesia or flower memories in comments!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Freesias are my favorite flower. It’s a sense memory that brings me joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,13],"tags":[32,29,30,31],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garden","category-home","category-musings","tag-cut-flowers","tag-flowers","tag-freesia","tag-home"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9fbjV-471","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyleighton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}