C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 7,1981
..js . was from .p .a la ;r
looking out over the Valentine crop The buds
Everything's coming
by susan Kauffman
Staff Correspondent
Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you l
This simplistic poem is probably
the first of such a child hears Its
thought has been repeated through
the years in more complicated
phrases Valentines are the names
given to these amorous notes To
have a Valentine accompany a
dozen long-stemmed roses is a
cherished symbol of affectionate
admiration
The rose is a flower lovingly
tended by the home gardener or
treasured when received as a
symbol of love It is much desired
for special occasions such as
weddings, proms, Mother’s Day
and Valentine’s Day, to name a
few
In recent years, their value has
risen dramatically to as much, in
some areas, as over $5O a dozen
The Walton family at London
Grove, Chester county, along with
other rose growers m that vicinity,
have found growing roses for
cutting is far from “a bed of
roses ”
As with any other agricultural
venture, long hours, special
knowledge and skills and personal
attention to detail are required to
produce a quality commodity.
LANCASTER FARMING visited
with the Waltons last week to get
an idea of what cultivating roses
for wholesale cutting mvolves
Frank and his brother Herbert own
and operate Waltons’ Roses and
Frank’s son Richard works with
them along with several full-time
and part-time employees
The family has a long history in
the greenhouse business as Her
bert explained At or even before
the turn of the century, the two
brothers’ father grew violets in the
greenhouse. Those were the most
popular corsage flowers then
Later th elder Walton switched to
the early varieties of carnations,
then called “pinks ” They were
single petaled rather than full,
ruffled carnations which are now
popular.
Still later their father ex
perimented with tomatoes and
even grew some of the very first
mushrooms m the area now known
as the mushroom capital of the
world Frank Walton explained
that the mushrooms were grown
from spawn shipped from Europe
and planted in beds under the
tomato beds. “That is the last
place you would see mushrooms
being grown today,” he grinned
Frank graduated from Penn
State in 1927 with a degree in
horticulture. His brother Herbert
graduated a year later In 1929 the
family constructed a huge, heavy
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glass and metal greenhouse to
grow roses
The house, still used today
measures 62 feet wide, 288 feet long
and at the peak of the roof,
probably fifteen feet high. Nearly
the length of a football field, the
greenhouse is sectioned off with
long rows of beds running parallel
to the long, side walls. The beds
are raised off the dirt-floor level by
several inches. Cement slabs eight
feet long and less than a foot high
and an inch thich form the sides of
the troughs. The beds are 46 inches
wide Soil and compost along with
vermicuhte or some other porous
substances are roto-tilled to
planting condition Rose stocks
which have been grown in the open
field by commercial growers for
one year are then set into the soil
one foot apart in each direction In
one running length of an eight-foot
side slab are planted 32 rose
bushes. In all, the Waltons have
12,500 rose bushes in the large
greenhouse and an additional 5,000
bushes in a smaller glass
greenhouse divided into three
sections
In both greenhouses, the rose
bushes are trained to grow upright
through a support system con
sisting of sections made with criss
crossing wires and bamboo sticks
The sticks he horizontally above
the beds to hold the wires in place.
At any one time only a few of the
beds have newly planted rose
bushes in them. They grow
profitably for four or five years;
some do well for longer though,
Frank Walton explained.
Two young women sort out the roses after the day's early
morning cutting Risa Wertz and Deana Murphy separate
them according to a quality into bundles of 25 each before
they are placed in a cooling room They are working on yellow
roses in this picture
r
pseven a
are
up roses
Once 'the roses are set in and
start to grow stems and bud, they
can be cut for up to a year con
tinuously. By that time, the stems
may be reaching a height of eight
feet or more Then they are
trimmed back to a height of around
eighteen inches and are allowed to
start growmg skyward once again
To maintain a strong supply or
rose buds for cutting in the fall,
winter and spring months, growers
trim the majority of the bushes in
the summer months As with other
growing plants, fertilizer and
disease and insect control play a
major role in production
Watering is done about once a
week, according to Frank Walton,
through a system of pipes and
spray nozzles which direct the
water across of the soil and
not on the plant foliage To in
crease the carbon dioxide content
in the greenhouse’s ‘ air”,
plants require co 2 and give off
oxygen when the sun shines the
family utilizes the exhause from a
co 2 is forced into the greenhouse
through plastic tubes running the
length of the greenhouse
To provide the heat for the
greenhouse at night and when the
sun does not warm it sufficiently,
the Waltons stoke a coal-fired
boiler The 52-year-old dual
chamber furnace dwells un
derground next to the big
greenhouse As evening ap
proaches, the Waltons bank up a
good firebed to send warm water
through the maze of pipes
spreading throughout the house
Near midnight the fires are tended
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foot tall plants.
eight
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his head The plants are set into soil prepared in 46 inch wide
cement sided beds and trained up through a grid of wire
divided sections
once more Toward the very early
morning hours, Frank makes
another trip from across the road
where he lives with his wife in a
large, white farmhouse to keep the
fire burning hot enough to main
tain the proper temperature in the
greenhouse
i’he smaller greenhouse is heated
with fuel oil Richaid Walton
remarked that it costs as much and
moie to heat the house with 5,000
roses as it does to heat with coal
the house holding 12,500 roses New
conservation practices recently
put into operation in the smaller
house are double layers of plastic
above the glass roof through which
air is circulated to create a heat
loss barrier and also installation of
a plastic ceiling well below the
glass peak
When the sun shines sufficiently,
the plants produce an average of
2500 cuttings a day, Richard ex
plained Sometimes the buds may
number as high as 5,000 a day
They are individually cut by hand
with a penknife every dav of the
week They are cut early in the
morning, then sorted, graded and
vdmesieed
Frank Walton's son, Richard, is placing the sorted, graded,
roses into one of the two walk-in cooling rooms.
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put into cooling rooms until
shipment to wholesale buyers
Waltons’ roses go to wholesalers
who service New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland and Virginia
markets as well as florists in the
immediate locality
Once sorted according to bud
shape, stem quality and color, the
roses are bundled in lots of 25 each
then placed stem ends in buckets of
water and then into cooling rooms
to hold their freshness
Their retail value in some local
areas may be as low as s2 i while
they may cost as much as $55 in
other metropolitan areas, the
Waltons said Imports are posing a
threat, but because of their
perishability, roses have not been
imported to the extent that car
nations have The Waltons added,
‘lmports have practically ruined
the local carnation growers ”
The Waltons grow 60 per cent red
roses The remainder are about
equally divided between the
pastels of yellow, white and pink
“We never have enough of any one
(Turn to Page 04)
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