Old Time White, Fragrant Freesias

Question from Linda:
I enjoyed your bulb lecture yesterday.

Do you think this site really has the old time fragrant freesia bulb?

http://www.oldhousegardens.com/display.aspx?prod=DI23

I used to have it in my old La Jolla house until we remodeled and changed the garden. You are right. The new ones have lost fragrance.

Answer from Pat:
Thank you so much for writing to me with this question. Yes, these appear to be the very freesias I mentioned yesterday in my class on bulbs at the San Diego Master Gardener Seminar. I am thrilled to learn that Old House Gardens, a catalogue and Internet site, is a source of the old white fragrant freesia that I mentioned as being so rare, lovely, and worthwhile growing. Once planted in well-drained soil this freesia will survive and multiply for many years in mild-winter Mediterranean climates, where it thrives outdoors without summer watering. (In cold winter climates, these freesias can be grown in pots, and brought indoors or into a greenhouse for the winter.) I sent for some immediately.

These fragrant white freesias, once a common sight in springtime gardens of Southern California, have been sadly replaced by modern hybrids in many colors with flowers too heavy for their wiry stems. The old white ones, however, are closer to the wild originals from South Africa and their fragrance will bowl you over. They also stand up straight through wind and rain while the new hybrids are top-heavy and fall over. Prior to the 1950’s you could buy the sturdy old type in nurseries. Often they were sold in separate bins along with the hybrids, then growers stopped growing the old ones. Even today they can still be found in a few old gardens in Southern California where they have naturalized since they were first planted in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Unfortunately many of these bulbs were lost when home owners died or their homes and gardens changed hands, or—as in your case—the new property owners re-built their homes and/or redesigned their gardens. Judging by the high price one pays today for these little-known treasures, it might behoove gardeners who still have them to sell them to dealers in antique bulbs instead of destroying them when redesigning gardens. The Master Gardener Seminars are another good place to sell old-time bulbs.