The RootMaker® Story

Built on Continuous Root Pruning Research since 1968

Carl Whitcomb

RootMaker History

RootMaker founder Wayne Hinton met Dr. Carl E. Whitcomb many years ago while operating a nursery in Tennessee. Dr. Whitcomb is a world-renowned horticulturist and ornamental plant breeder who invented the RootMaker System in 1983.

The two formed a partnership, and in 2000, this led to the creation of the RootMaker company, in Huntsville, Alabama, to sell and market the RootMaker® Root Branching System.

Today, the RootMaker product line includes more than 70 products used by growers around the world. Many of these growers are part of the RootMaker® Certified Grower’s program, which certifies plants grown at commercial nurseries and tree farms using the RootMaker® Root Branching System.

Dr. Carl E. Whitcomb received his Ph.D. in horticulture, plant ecology, and agronomy from Iowa State University in 1969. He was a professor at Oklahoma State University 1972 – 1985, then began his own horticultural research company, Lacebark Inc. Root constriction pruning grew from a chance observation in 1967. He was the first to perform air-root-pruning in 1968 using milk cartons with bottoms removed. This eventually lead to RootMaker®, RootBuilder®, RootTrapper®, and Knit Fabric In-Ground Containers. Accomplishments include: four books (Plant Production in Containers II, Production of Landscape Plants II (in the field), Know It and Grow It III, and Establishment and Maintenance of Landscape Plants II), 37 patents (Dynamite® and Red Rocket® crape myrtles, and multiple container designs), papers published in several hundred journal and technical publications, and numerous nursery industry awards from groups such as the American Association of Nurserymen, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, the International Society of Arboriculture, the Association of Garden Writers and Nursery Business Magazine.