### Freesia bouquets in Phuket: one job, and the scent that arrives late There is exactly one piece of maintenance that matters with this flower, and it pays back the same day it is done. As each lower bloom finishes it turns translucent and then browns, and if it stays on the spike it does two things at once. It spoils the look, and it holds back the buds above it that have not opened yet. Pinch the spent flowers off with your fingers. Do not cut the stem, because cutting takes away the buds everyone is waiting for. That is the whole of it. Everything else is ordinary care: fresh water every other day, a clean vase, a new cut on the stem ends, no direct afternoon sun through glass. Freesia bouquets in Phuket start at 2200 THB, and payment goes by bank card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PromptPay, bank transfer or cash to the courier in baht. Orders run 9 AM to 10 PM. > "We write two words on the card now. Pinch, do not cut. It saves more bouquets than any sachet we have ever handed out." > JFLOO florist How many buds are standing when the box opens is effectively how many days the bunch has left. A spike with a long firm row above the open flowers is a longer gift than a short one, and the two look nearly identical on the first evening. Water level is the small detail that undoes people. Freesia drinks very little, and a thin stem standing deep in water softens at the base and stops conducting, which halts the queue of buds no matter how carefully everything else is done. Room temperature decides how long the sequence runs, and in air at 25 to 33 °C that is not a small factor. Warmth pushes several buds open at once, which looks generous for a day and then leaves the spike finished well before it should be. A cool room keeps the openings spaced out. An air conditioned bedroom will stretch the same bunch by days compared with the same stems on a covered terrace, and that is the single most useful thing to tell a recipient. Three things keep the queue going: - Pinching, as soon as a bloom goes translucent. - A cool still room rather than an open one. - Water changed every other day with a fresh cut each time. Nobody needs to do more than that. Scent is the other half of this flower, and it behaves in a way that catches people out. The perfume is strong but clean, citrus over a little sweetness, and it does not sit heavily in a room the way heavier flowers do. It builds as the spike opens. On the first evening the bouquet smells of almost nothing, and it is at its best somewhere around the middle of its life. Somebody who unwraps freesia expecting an immediate wall of scent concludes they were sold something faded, when in fact nothing has happened yet. We have taken that call more than once, always on the second day and never on the fifth. White and yellow spikes are the ones that carry the most perfume. Reds and lilacs are chosen for colour and are noticeably quieter, which is worth knowing if the scent is the reason for the gift. We cover the west coast in 90 to 180 minutes, with separate windows for villas, marinas and airport runs, and between May and October we build extra time into the route. The buds travel closed, so a longer road costs this flower less than it costs most of what we send. For an airport arrival or a dinner by the sea we would usually suggest something already open instead. This flower earns its keep at an address where somebody is staying for a week or more and will be there to watch the spike work its way up. Two lines with the flowers cover everything the recipient needs. Pinch the spent blooms off, and give it three days before judging the scent.