Freesia laxa ssp. azurea
Mary Sue Ittner (Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:04:59 PST)

All this discussion about Makiko's Babiana rubrocyanea has encouraged
me to share what happened to me this year with Freesia laxa ssp.
azurea. I had tried growing it many times, always
unsuccessfully. Gastil gave me some corms to try and last year I had
wonderful results. The corms increased so I had an opportunity to
replant in a couple of different ways. This subspecies starts in
growth much sooner than the other subspecies, often flowering in
winter. That may have been one of my problems before as I assumed I
could grow it just like the red or white ones. I've been the opposite
extreme to Leo in the past with high humidity in winter and low light
when it rained a lot and a lot of South African plants haven't been
very happy with that, even if they are from winter rainfall areas.
Even sheltering them from the rain in the past didn't change the
humidity. Even in my greenhouse with a fan going the humidity
measured over 90% some years. California has been experiencing a
drought and last year we had the lowest amount of rain during the
rainy season in years and this probably contributed to my success
last year. This year is still up for grabs, but between September and
late December we had as much rain as the entire year last
year. Since then nothing. The Freesia laxa ssp. azurea that was
planted outside in a raised bed and was not sheltered from this
deluge looks terrible. The leaves are brown and the flowers dropped
off before they opened. Most of the other plants in the raised beds
look fine, but there are a few also unhappy and some Oxalis in pots I
didn't move out of the rain soon enough . On the other hand a Freesia
laxa ssp. azurea pot that I had on a shady porch out of the rain
where I had moved the Clivia (which experience has taught me is
necessary) is blooming happily at the moment undamaged.

Mary Sue