Tom Heyl gets that wistful feeling each February, as florists race to stock up on roses ahead of Valentine’s Day.
But it’s not nostalgia for an old flame. Before he became a real estate agent, Heyl was New Jersey’s last rose grower.
Heyl, now 44, remembers spending 16-hour days in his family’s Chatham Township greenhouse, the flower’s delicate scent filling his nostrils as he worked to cut and wrap thousands of blossoms late into the night. Back then, he recalls, almost every rose you saw at the local florist was grown in New Jersey, which was known as the nation’s rose-growing capital. Madison was even dubbed the "Rose City" for its flourishing industry.
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