Gardening Tips & Tree Care Blog - Rootwell Products Inc.

Carrageenan Food Additive: What You Need to Know

Last updated: March 6, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

The first time I ever heard of carrageenan was when I was embarking on the Whole 30 for the first time. This is a diet – or more like a 30-day food challenge – designed to radically change your relationship to food and bring you back to a healthier place, physically.

It has become common to see pictures of people’s food on social media with a hashtag label for what Whole 30 day they are on as a mark of accomplishment. The challenge can get intense. You are not allowed to eat any grains, sugars or dairy.

in Organic Gardening

Winter Birding: Birds You Can Only See In Winter

Last updated: February 28, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

Are you a fan of the Winter Olympics? It’s one of my favorite indoor pastimes in winter, even though it does only come around every four years.

One benefit of watching the Olympics is that it tends to remind you that people do have the ability to enjoy themselves outdoors in winter.

Let’s face it. Gardeners don’t always make the best winter lovers. However, here is a challenge. How can we get outside and enjoy the season despite the cold? Skiers do it. Hunters do it.

Gardeners can do it too! One pastime enjoyed by many gardeners in warm months is still available to you through the winter! Birding.

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Cobb houses By Benjahdrum CC BY-SA 3.0,via Wikimedia Commons

Cob Houses: The Greenest Way To Build

Last updated: February 20, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

Example of cob houses example - photo by Benjahdrum CC BY-SA 3.0,via Wikimedia Commons

The first time I heard about building with cob, it was from a relative who was planning to go off the grid. He was going to buy a piece of land with cash, move there in the early summer, and build his cob house with his own two hands before the cold weather hit.

What are cob houses, I wondered?

He told me it was basically mud.

in Go Green

How To Start Your Own Orchard – Gardening Tips

Last updated: February 13, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

One of my favorite memories from childhood is of picking apples at my grandparents’ house. Neither of them would have considered themselves farmers. However, since they both grew up on a farm – in the midst of the depression – growing their own food was second nature.

Twenty or so years before I was born, they planted several kinds of apple trees in their large front yard. I can remember climbing a ladder to get to the very top branches with the sweetest apples and eating them straight from the tree.

in Gardening Tips / Tree Care

Weed Trees: How to Identify and Get Rid of Them

Last updated: February 6, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

Weed trees. Have you ever had one? I bet you remember if you have.

I will never forget the sweaty weekday I spent weeding the overgrown flower beds at a rental house I lived in with three other people. None of us had grown up taking care of our own flower beds or even doing very much weeding with our parents.

in Beginner Gardener / Gardening Tips

The Dire True Predictions of Climate Change

Last updated: February 5, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

Landscape of wooden pathway with the changing environment showing climate change.

If you listened to a recent piece on NPR’s This American Life, or read National Geographic – or if you are paying attention at all to scientists’ newest predictions about sea level rise, you know that some of, or most of the biggest and most populated cities in the world are set to disappear in a permanent flood due to climate change.

in News

An Ecological Garden Revolution – The New Gardening Phenomenon

Last updated: January 23, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

There’s nothing more tragic to a lover of plants than the sight of several sad little plants languishing by themselves in a newly “landscaped” front yard or park. It may be on a small island amidst a sea of concrete, or even in a sea of grass.

I often see the beginning gardens of amateur gardener and wonder what’s going wrong with it.

Why doesn’t it please the eye? Why does it look stunted and sad?

After all, the gardener was most likely following the instructions that are given by the nursery about how best to cultivate the plant. Most instructions give placement requirements: “plant no closer than 2 inches from another plant.”

The Missing Ingredient

in Gardening Tips

Pine Trees 101: Top Tips on Pruning and Caring for Evergreens

Last updated: February 13, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

Pine trees are one of the hardiest types of trees. They have a naturally beautiful shape that rarely needs pruning.

There are some considerations if you have a few pine trees on your land, or want to do more to influence the shape, size, and health of your trees.

in Tree Care

The Amazing Juniper Bush – What You’ll Want to Know

Last updated: January 19, 2018 by Rootwell Products Inc.

A friend of mine discovered she had juniper bushes on her property the first year she lived in her house this way: Every year she uses fresh evergreen branches as decoration around her house to make wreaths and garlands.

in Gardening Tips