What is phoenix soil? Do you mean you live in Phoenix and just used the local soil?

I have never grown Freesia or Ranunculus but daffodils don't need any special soil. Just a reasonably friable local soil and enough moisture.

Oh flora - NO buttercups?! (Lucky you!)

Freesias are fine in a silty or somewhat sandy soil and don't mind some clay content so long as they aren't waterlogged over winter while they're coming into leaf.

However - if you bought the big florists' varieties with the coloured flowers you must provide frost shelter unless you're in zone 9b or above. And some stem supports would be useful, too, because they can be tall and heavy and flop outrageously while they're flaunting.

If you're growing the little yellow-blotched white ones with the pleasant scent - they're hardy and sturdy in 9a for sure.

The Ranunculus with the big flowers like turbans need a deep soil and excellent drainage - and plenty of matured compost. They're a greedy flower - just like their pesky pasture relations. (Only the best manure patches for Them.) They have a mass of fine-hair roots out of all proportion to their scrawny little claws.

'Deep soil' means either a raised bed of 18" high, or digging down and loosening for at least 18".

Protect your amended soil and topsoil if you need to do this. Scoop it out onto a sheet of plastic while you are loosening up the next layer down using a strong gardening fork. Just push the fork into it and wriggle it to break up the stiff soil.

Then put the top soil back, add any amendments, and water it to settle the soil and get the soil life going again after the upheaval.

Do not mix the two different soil layers. The top one is where most of the food and soil life are found.

For fertiliser you can use one part superphosphate, one part blood and bone, and a spritz of sulphate of potash mixed through that amended soil before planting. Think in tablespoons - not poundweights - about an ounce of the mixed up brew scattered dry over a square yard and lightly forked through the top few inches before you plant your Ranunculus claws.

Ho, ho, vetivert8. But no, I have never grown Ranunculus. Although they have occasionally grown themselves.

Thank you Vetivert8, this was great information. Just waiting for them to start sprouting :) I am zone 9a btw.