If pictures tell a thousand words, flowers have produced an even more profound narrative for the Freytag family.

The clan of florists have been delivering stems, bouquets and other arrangements in the Austin area since 1974, and the floras that have been the Freytags’ livelihood for so many years have not lost their meaning, patriarch Ken Freytag said.

The business owner, who was 19 years old when he opened the original Freytag’s Florist in Northwest Hills, said seeing the more than 100 floral items at his mother’s funeral last year helped his family during the grieving process. Seeing his mother “engulfed in a garden” of arrangements brought a sense of calm to the service, he said.

“Flowers are all about emotion,” Ken said. “They truly are.”

His mother, as well as several other Freytags, played a role in the growth of the Freytag name.

Ken’s son Chad helped set up Freytag’s web presence when online retail was beginning to pick up steam. Now Freytag’s online sales are growing more than any other segment of the business.

Ken’s daughter Casey is a designer at the store and helps put together the arrangements that are sent to customers on the same day they place their order. The floral business delivers 150-200 orders a day and inventories about 6,000 flower and plant stems a week excluding peak times such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Inventory has grown about 8-12 percent every year, Ken said.

Before the dot-com boom and even before the Yellow Pages took hold, Freytag’s Florist had eight Austin-area locations. Ken said having stores distributed throughout the city was a form of advertisement. But as soon as the internet became the primary way people were finding businesses, Freytag downsized its number of locations to one and focused on purchasing a facility instead of renting.

Freytag’s Florist moved east of MoPac to the corner of Burnet Road and Anderson Lane, near the geographical center of the city of Austin.

Location, a large property, quality flowers and good customer service have helped the business amid trying times for the floral industry, Ken said.

Freytag’s Florist
2211 W. Anderson Lane
512-371-5640
www.freytagsflorist.com
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m.-1 p.m., Sun. closed