There were a thousand roses in the big carton, all packed carefully in rows of a dozen, yellow pink, white, red, with sprinklings of chipped ice between the layers for cooling purposes on the trip to Boston retailers. The shipment was just one of many made daily at Peter Fisher & Sons greenhouses after the early morning cutting. The Norwood florist specializes in the ever popular rose, and is one of the few in this section of the country who makes grafting responsible for rose production.
It wasn’t always roses at Fisher’s. Peter Fisher, who founded the business in 1890, was a carnation specialist. Roses became the specialty in 1922 and their production is now the responsibility of Stanley Fisher and his son, Allyn Fisher.
The story of just how roses are raised from cuttings (scions, to be technical) grafted to wild rose bush stalks, to the bushes which may bear as many as thirty blooms at a time is one of painstaking labor, alert and constant watchfulness, and of the mystery of growth itself. A rose bush bears well for three years and is usually discarded at the end of that time as its productivity diminishes. Consequently, a continual succession of new bushes must be nursed along to ensure a more or less permanent crop.
The bushes which bear any one of the many varieties of roses are the result of grafts made on stalks of wild rose bushes. Not many florists do their own grafting. The Fishers, tired of paying prices for good plants yet not getting them, learned the grafting art, and now sell plants to any number of New England growers.
Prior to the war their stalks came from England and Holland where growing conditions made hardy plants and prices were cheaper. Now the American northwest, specifically the state of Washington, is the source of supply Seven foot cases bring the manetti stalks, the variety best suited for greenhouse purposes.
These stalks are potted long enough to let the eyes swell for proof of a healthy plant. Then grafting begins. January, February and March, before the advent of hot weather, are the grafting months. Fishers will graft about 25,000 plants this year.
The under stalk is cut on a slant with a sharp razor, a clean, sharp cut being of the utmost importance. The scion or cutting, an eye in the axle of a leaf, of the desired variety of rose is likewise cut on a slant and is matched, top, bottom and sides, as nearly as possible to the understalk. Raffia binda the two together. With the cambion layers, the active growing cells of the plant matched, the wound is quickly healed. Only careful scrutiny reveals the joint in mature plants. Ninety-eight to 99 per cent of Fisher’s graftings this year have been successful.
The new grafts are next stored in frames, 300 pots to a frame. For ten days to two weeks they are sealed in the nailed down eases which are very moist and kept at a temperature of 80 degrees. Cases are most by virtue of four inches of well soaked sand on the bottom, with steam pipes underneath forcing tbe moisture to rise through it.
As the grafted plant begins to develop, it is gradually introduced to air from an opening of a quarter of an inch to advance to a couple of inches. After another couple of weeks, It is ready to be moved to one of the three 300-foot Fishiy greenhouses which average a 60-degree temperature. Laggard graftings are coaxed along in a special frame, called a nursery, getting more moisture or beat as the case may be.
The young plants are not allowed to produce their first blooms, being pinched to cause branching. By September, graftings being made now will start to produce, and by Christmas will be blooming well. The original plant grafted eventually dies, but eyes on either side of it have produced branches, and healthy plants continue to pat out breaks from the main stalk. Thus, a plant perpetuates Itself.
Fishers now raises nine varieties of roses Better Times, the red rose, Briarcliff pink; Talisman, Yellow Gloria, Golden Raptnre, White Kilamey, Peters BriarcIifT. Lucille Hill, a deep pink; and Parmentier, a new rose, which the local florist Is just introducing to his stock. It is named for the Dutchman who, evacuated from Holland in this war, is making nightly air raids from England on his German occupied homeland.
Roses are cut the first thing in the morning. Right now between 800 and 1000 will be cut in a day. As days get longer, the number will increase. Length of stems cut will depend on the season. In the spring, they will come long as bushes are trimmed. During the grafting season they will run shorter, about nine inches, as cuttings are desired. In the fall, the desire to allow the wood to break will dictate the shorter stem again. The variety of rose also influences cutting, talisman for instance being cut tighter than a more petaled rose.
When new beds are planted at Fishers, instead of introducing new soil, manure is mixed with the old and the whole cooked by steam. This process sterilises the soil killing weed seeds, bugs, etc. Soil in the beds are then not tampered with until another planting in the beds are then not tampered with until another planting: in about three years.
Backdrop of the greenhouse plant is quite as amazing as the growing sections. For here may be found enormous boilers fed by automatic stokers, with, down the line, the electric and steam pumps for returning condensation to the boiler unit. Background too is the water pump which provides for the once or twice a week watering of greenhouse plants. Likewise indispensable is the large spray pump used to ward off plant pests. A large compressor adjoins the large greenhouse refrigerator, always packed with roses, at its 42 degrees.
(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)
