Smart Pots

High Caliper Growing, maker of the Smart Pot, was incorporated as Root Control, Inc. in 1984 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. But the story actually began six years earlier when Ralph Reiger took an early retirement from a long career at Merrill Lynch & Co., the financial firm, and started The Tree Farm in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Guthrie is not the center of the nursery business, and Ralph immediately began having problem finding people who could dig trees ball and burlap. He priced tree spades, but that was expensive, and you still needed skilled personnel. With the help of people at Oklahoma State University, Ralph fashioned the first fabric containers, called them ROOT CONTROL BAGS, and put them out at The Tree Farm in Guthrie in 1980.

The initial harvest was in August of 1982. The first thing Ralph noticed was – the trees lived! August in Oklahoma is hot, and not the right time to harvest 2” caliper river birch, or any other variety of tree. Upon inspection, Ralph realized the fabric Root Control Bag had root pruned the plant’s root structure, giving him a vastly improved plant. It was the first instance of someone using fabric to improve the root structure of a plant.

The Root Control Bag immediately gained the attention of a number of progressive nurserymen. Since incorporating in 1984, the Bag system of growing has gained thousands of customers growing millions of plants, in all fifty states and a number of countries worldwide.