Freesia Planting Guide

Freesia’s are a Kiwi favourite - their stunning sweet scent and beautiful colourful blooms make for an instant impact in any garden.

Freesia Bulbs are well suited for naturalising, establishing themselves relatively quickly within the garden, but are also perfect in pots. The beauty of growing Freesias in pots is the ability to move them close to the house once in flower, to distribute their heavenly aroma.

Freesias are actually corms rather than Bulbs, and will send out all of their nutrients in one season to produce a beautiful display. The corm will then reproduce into several other corms, with the initial corm fading away into nothing.

You can plant Freesias anytime from March through to late May.

Planting Freesias…

• Freesia Bulbs (Corms) require full Sun or part shade to thrive.
• Ensure your soil is free draining. If the soil retains too much water, the corms will rot away in the Winter Months. To avoid this, you can build up your beds.
• Loosen the soil to a depth of at least 15cm, and mix in some good quality Bulb fertilizer.
• Plant Freesias with the pointy part of the corm facing upwards, and a depth of around 6cm. You can plant Freesia Bulbs fairly close together, however we would suggest no closer than 5cm.
• Give your Freesias a good deep initial watering, and continue to do so once every few days if conditions are dry, or if you have planted them in pots (generally potting mix dries out quickly)

Freesias for cut flowers…

Freesias make the perfect cutflower, and are beautiful in arrangements - their stunning sweet fragrance will fill your home.

When cutting your flower stems, ensure that you leave at least 10cm on the plant, and try to avoid cutting too many leaves.

Remove any bottom leaves from the stem, and place the flower stems in a vase of cool water - if you have flower preservers, then that will help to prolong the vase life; otherwise you should replace the water every day or two, and recut the stems. Pull off any spent flowers, as this will allow the coming blooms to flourish.

Fresh flowers will last longer in a cool environment, away from the Sun, so if you have a cooler area of your house, they’ll do much better there.

After flowering…

Once your Freesia’s have finished flowering, they will begin to slowly die back - keep watering as necessary, as this is how they nourish next years corms. Again, it’s essential, as with all Bulbs and Corms, to allow the greenery to die back completely before removing any leaves.

Once the leaves are brown and dry, you are then welcome to remove them to tidy things up a little.

Freesias can be left in the ground for years and years to Naturalise, however, if you’re wanting to lift the corms, the best time would be December/January.

Dig them out, and let dry for a couple of weeks. Once the Corms are dry, store them somewhere cool and dry until it’s time to replant around March/April.