Page 16 - The Hunt - Spring 2020

HOME & GARDEN
(Previous page) Ralph Rosazza has steered his greenhouse operation through a variety of ups and downs. (This page) Rosazza and his wife, Barbara, put in a
day’s work.
It rained all night and all day. But when the sun emerges by mid-afternoon, it’s almost as if Ralph Rosazza cast some spell. “I was looking ... But no, no, no. There’s no magic wand,” says the veteran grower. “This is what has kept me alive.”
As he speaks, the 88-year-old walks under the greenhouse ventilators he’s opened and closed for decades, stopping to check the buds on the snapdragons. “Reds come in too late and take too long, so we grow whites, pinks and yellows,” he says. “Lavender takes a lot longer, but no one wants lavender—or at least not much of it.”
A third-generation grower based in Avondale, Pa., Rosazza Son’s Florist & Greenhouses
has a variety of seasonal options, including Easter bulbs, geraniums, vegetable plants, mums and poinsettias. Right now, Ralph is tucking snapdragon blooms into
four stacked layers of woven wire racks that keep them growing straight. All the “snap” will bloom a second time in April, then be cut and shipped mostly to flower shows and fairs in Kennett Square and Oxford, Pa., and Wilmington, Del.
Rosazza once sold flowers to
the White House. He specialized
in carnations, England’s “divine flower,” first introduced to our Eastern Seaboard in the early
1800s. New York’s Charles Willis Ward popularized the carnation in 1903 with his book The America Carnation—How to Grow It. The American Carnation Society was formed in 1892, surviving until 1981.
Rosazza supplied carnations to Harry Truman, George Bush Sr. and many presidents in between. Since then, the cut-flower industry has shifted operations to South America, becoming too expensive to be profitable. This wilting of a low-key industry is a story
14 THE HUNT MAGAZINE
spring 2020
continued on page 16