New Freesia Red Beauty

Red Beauty’ is the latest ‘super model’ among the Freesias. Her secrets of success are her looks, and a heady fragrance.
Freesia is the ideal flower for adding fragrance to a mixed bouquet. In the case of ‘Red Beauty’ the fragrance is strikingly heady and pleasantly sweet. The fragrance is hardly there when the flower is closed but as soon as the first buds open ‘Red Beauty’ is transformed into a merciless seductress. Naturally the fabulous sparkling red colour and well filled, double flowers also play a part. When fully open Beauty has a diameter of 5.5 to 6 cm.

Other advantages are her good vase life, her sturdy stem and the upright comb. This ‘Red Beauty’ is an absolute super model among Freesias.

Family: Freesia is a member of the Iridaceae family.

Varieties
The Dutch flower auctions differentiate between two types of Freesias: the single and double flowered varieties. The single flowered varieties account for the greatest proportion of supply to the auctions.

Top 15 Freesia (double flowered)

1. ‘Volante’
2. ‘Yvonne’
3. ‘Purple Rain’
4. ‘Honeymoon’
5. Versailles
6. ‘Marianne’
7. Cassis
8. ‘Blue Bayou’
9. Grandeur
10. Grace
11. ‘Priscilla’
12. ‘Zephyr’
13. ‘Empire’
14. Orangina
15. ‘Duet’


Tips for care

• Allow Freesias to take a good drink of fresh water, while still in their wrapper.
• Cut about 3 cm off the stems.
• Fill a vase with fresh water and add some cut flower food. If possible use cut flower food for bulb flowers. This additive stops the flowers from drooping when they continue to grow in the vase.
• Freesias are sensitive to ethylene, which accelerates the ageing process in these flowers so that fewer flowers will open. For this reason Freesias should be kept away form sources of ethylene such as ripening fruit or exhaust fumes.

Explanation of the name
Freesias were discovered in South Africa. The plant was named after German physician Fr. Freese, a fellow student of Chr. Fr. Echlon (1795-1868) who first discovered the plant. Echlon collected many plants in the Cape Colony. Freesias were sometimes called 'Cape lily of the valley'. Although this name never caught on it does indicate where the first varieties were found.