Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
13~710
The present invention relates to a plant tube for
use in flower pots. som~ species of plants, e.g. ivy and
Scirpus, grow in a more or less loose hanging manner,
and for presenting these plants in an improved manner
it is already customary to let them grow up from a
relatively narrow ~ube, which is stuck down into a
central area of the earth or growing medium in an
ordinary plant pot. As the plant grows it may then rise
over the upper edge of the narrow tube and thus become
"hanging" from an increased height.
In practice the tube is mounted and filled partially
with a growth medium, and the plant is supplied to this
medium as a sprout or a seed. The roots, of course,
grow downwardly and may graduall~ project through the
lower end of the tube and into the surrounding growth
medium of the pot.
Thus, the lower end portion of the tube should be
provided with holes located somewhat spaced above the
bottom of the pot. It is customary that this is achieved
by sha~ing the tube such that its lower end portion, in
which side holes are provided, is narrowing conically
downwardly to form a pointed end portion, whereby the
tube is esay to stick down into the earth filled pot.
Such tubes are used in large numbers and should of
course be produced in a cheap manner, preferably by die
casting of a cheap plastic material. The provision of
the said holes in the conical end portion may cause some
~roubles with respect to the formation of thin material
fins pxojecting inwardly from the hole edges towards
the centre of the respective holes, and seen in the
a~ial direction of the tube such fin portions will
gxeatly reduce the available penetration area of the roots.
Already the holes themselves do not provide for any large
penetration area, since the area of the remaining wall
of the conical tube end portion is o~ about the same
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size as the total area of the holes.
The invention provides a plant tube which has an
advantageous shape and is easy to produce.
According to the invention the tube has a generally non-
narrowing shape adjacent its lower end and is provided with
one or more downwardly projecting protrusions of a-thin-
walled planar or part-cylindrical shape. In this context the
term "thin-walled" will re~er to a wall thickness of the same
magnitude as the wall thickness of the tube itself. In this
manner the tube may show a wide aperture at the lower end
thereo~, such that the roots may seek downwardly practically
without any obstruction.
In one aspect, the invention provides a method of
preparing plant pots, which are to be delivered for sale from
a gardening enterprise as sales pots filled with a growth
substrate with an upstanding plant tube in which a plant is
growing being inserted into the substrate from above, the
plant roots having access to ~he pot substrate through one or
more holès at the lower end of the plant tube, the method
be`ing characterized ,by the use of a plant tube having an
inwardly tapering lower end portion, the holes for providing~
root acceæs to the substrate being spaced above the lowermost
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end of said plant tube, and in the substrate and the lower
end of the plant tube being received in a plant pot having at
its bottom portion an upstanding guiding portion, in which
there is provided a tapered depression corresponding to the
tapered end of the plant tube, this depression being used for
guidingly receiving the lower end of the plant tube, the
plant tube when mounted in position in said depression having
the or each root access hole located at least partially above
the uppermost edge of said upstanding guiding portion.
In preferred embodiments of this aspect, the invention
provides:
The above method whereby the guiding portion is provided
as a separate unit shaped as an inner pot member operable to
hold the growth substrate inside said plant pot; and whereby
the inner pot member is used for the initlal growing of the
plant, and is placed in said plant pot which acts as an outer
sales pot prior to delivery from the gardening enterprise.
A plant pot system for use in the above method,
comprising a plant pot provided with said upstanding guiding
portion at its bottom portion and a plant tube with an
inwardly tapered lower end and one or more holes allowing
access for the plant roots to the~substrate provided at its
lower end.
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The above plant pot system, in which tha upstanding
guiding portion is a shell body comprising a frustro-conical
portion upstanding from a bottom shell portion and continuing
at its top in a shell portion forming said depression.
The above plant pot systems, in which the upstanding
bottom portion is formed integrally with the bottom of the
plant pot.
The above plant pot systems, in which the upstanding
bottom portion is provided as a separate insert member shaped
as a plant pot and dimensioned for mounting in an exterior
conventional sales plant pot.
In the following the invention is described in more
detail, by way of example, with reference to the drawings, in
which:
Fig. 1 is a schematic side view of a plant pot fitted
with a tube according to the invention,
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Fig. 2 is a side view of the tube ltself,
Fig. 3 is an end view of the tube, seen from the top
thereof,
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Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the tube,
Fig. 5 is a perspactive view, partly in section, of a
special production pot for use with the plant tube,
Fig. 6 is a sectional view of the production pot and the
plant tube in joined condition, and
Fig. 7 is a lateral, partly sectional view of a pot and
tube assembly with a plant ready for sale.
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The plant pot of Fig. 2 is provided with a growth medium
4, and in the middle thereof is planted a tube member 6
having an upper tube portion 8 and a lower pointed portion
10 projecting downwardly from the lower edge 12 of the tube
portion 8. The tube member 6 as prefilled with a growth
medium is stuck into the medium 4 until the lower end of
the pointed por~ion hits the bottom of the pot, whereby
the tube member is known to assume a correct height position,
when it is otherwise adapted to the size of the pot.
The growth medium inside the tube 8 holds a sprout or a
seed of the relevant type, and after a while the pot with
the developed plant 14 is ready for delivery from the green-
house or truck garden. The roots of the plant have grown
down through the lower tube end 12 and into the medium 4.
The tube member 6 as shown in Figs. 2-4 has a top portion
16 of enlarged diameter, whereby it is able to be suspended
between two opposed carrier rods or edges, shown at 18 in
dotted lines in Fig. 2, for the purpose of being filled
with its growth medium prior to its mounting in the plant
pot. The pointed portion 10 is constituted by a cross plate
structure comprising four radial wing plates 20, which are
each secured to the lower edge 12 of the tube portion 8,
at respective areas 22.
The wing plates 20 will contribute to stabilize the tube
~5 member 6 in the plant pot, and with their pointed shape
they will facilitate the sticking down of the tube member
into the pot.
It will be appreciated that the lower end of the tube por-
tion 8, as most clearly shown by Fig. 3, will show a wide
total light, the presence of the wing plates 20 giving rise
to but a small area reduction, whereb~ the roots are free
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to grow straight downwardly out of the tube.
The illustrated tube member is easy to produce by die
casting from some cheap thermoplastic material.
T}le wing plates 20 should not necessarily be downwardly
pointed, and there may be more or less than jus-t four of
the radial plates. The "open" lower portion 10 should not
even necessarily be constituted by "radial plates", as these
plates may be substituted e.g. by downwardly projecting,
mutually spaced axial legs or other prolongations of the
wall material of the tube portion 8, whereby the bottom
hole of the tube will be left entirely open, though with
some restriction in the growing path of the roots outwardly
from the area underneath the tube portion 8. For simplicity
such legs may be axial prolongations of the tube 8, i.e.
having a part-cylindrical cross section.
On the other hand, the illustrated preferred shaping prin-
ciple with four - or three or five - radial wings 20 meeting
along a centrally disposed axial line area is very advan-
tageous both for a good stability of the structure 10 and
~0 for an easy integrated production of the structures 8 and
10, without the lower end of the tube 8 being widely closed
by the structure 10 or by casting fins.
The plant tube 6, as shown in Fig. 1, will be usable merely
by insertion in the substrate of an ordinary plant pot 2,
~5 but in a preferred embodiment of the invention the plant
tube is used in a system camprising a special pot, as illu-
strated in Figs. 5-7.
According to customary practice the plant tubes are filled
entirely or partially with a substrate, in which the plant
is sowed or planted, and the tubes are thcn mounted in sub-
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strate filled pots, in which they are laterally supportedby the substrate. The pots thereafter constitute production
units, the plants of which are grown in the truck graden
into a condition ready for sale, whereafter the said pro-
duction units are used directly as sales units.
There are two problems connected herewith, viz. partly that
the sales unit will almost inevitably be smudged by rests
of li~uid manure from the prehistory of the sales unit as
a production unit, and partly that for the truck garden
personnel it may be difficult to mount the plant tubes in
the pots in reasonably well centered positions therein, as
the units are produced or prepared in large numbers and
require a rapid handling with respect to the mounting of
the plant tubes. It would of course be possible to make use
of centering templates or other guiding means for achieving
a well centered mounting of the plant tubes in ordinary pots,
but such auxiliaries would enevitably involve additional
costs without solving problems other than the problem of
a well centered mounting of the plant tubes.
In connection with the invention, however, it has been rea-
lized that the centering problem may be solved in an eco-
no~ically acceptable manner, viz. by a concurrent solving
of the other of the said two problems, the smudged sales
unit.
~ccording to this aspect of the invention it is prescribed
that ~or the growing of the plant in the truck garden a
special production pot be used, which is made from a cheap
plastic material and is shaped with a bottom portion com-
prising an upstanding shell portion having a centrally
disposed depression operable to receive the lower, pointed
end of the plant tube so as to facilitate a centered posi-
tioning thereof; hereby a correct and rapid mounting of the
6 132~7~ ~
plant tubes will be greatly facilitated, but it is also
achieved that the said smudging problem can be overcome
in that the very cheap production pot, when ready for sale,
is placed in a new conventional sales pot, whereby the sales
unit will appear as a clean pot without the production pot
having to be cleaned at all.
Thus, the use of the particular, cheap production pot will
solve two relevant problems, whereby it is advantageously
applicable.
It would of course be possible to make use of but a single
pot, i.e. a combined production and sales pot provided with
the said bottom arrangement for a centering reception of the
plant tube, but even though the relevant plant pots are sold
in millions such special sales pots would still amount to
a relatively minor product, which cannot possibly be produced
in any profitable manner by each and all pot manufacturers.
However, the said special production pot may be manufactured
in large numbers and in but a few different sizes by one or
a few specialized entities such that these few types or
sizes of production pots may fit into several, more e~pen-
sive sales pots originating from different sales pot manu-
facturers. The special production pots may thus still be
produced as very cheap units, made e.g. from reuse plastic
by means of simple die casting tools that are not worked
for producing any attractive surface of the pot members.
The sales pots, in their turn, may remain unchanged, as
standard products showing an attractive outer surface.
The said special production pot as shown in Figs. 5 and 6
and designated 2~ is of a normal pot shape except that its
bottom portion is shaped with an upstanding shell portion
26 provided with a conical central depression 28, the lower
pointed end of which may be cut away as shown at 30. The pot
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is die cast from a cheap reuse plastic by means of cheap
shaping tools, which by way of example, may provide the
pot with an outside appearance that would be quite unaccept-
able for a sales pot. As mentioned, however, the pot 24 is
S intended for use as a production pot onl~.
It will be appreciated that the depression 28 makes it easy
for the operator to place the plant tube 6 in a correctly
centered position in the pot, as shown in Fig. 6. The depres-
sion accommodates the lower end portion of the structure lO
such that the bottom edge 12 of the plant tube will still
be raised well above the top of the upstanding pot portion
26 in order to provide for clearance for the plant roots
to grow out into the substrate of the pot. The plant can be
grown in this pot in the truck garden, and it is unimportant
that the production pot is hereby smudged by the watering
and handling of the pot.
When the plant has grown to be ready for sale the entire
unit shown in Fig. 6 is placed in a sales pot 32 as shown
in Fig. 7. The sales pot ma~ be an existing standard product
that is used also for many other types of plants without
the use of a plant tube 6, whereby, due to very large pro-
duction figures, also these pots may be produced reasonably
cheap, with an appearance which is acceptable for sales
purposes, e.g. with a smooth and dull sur~ace. The combined
~S unit may thus be delivered in a sales pot 32, which is not
smudged during the growing of the plant, i.e. the unit
can be delivered without any attempt at cleaning it.
The production pot 24 is preferably shaped with an upper,
outstanding collar 25, and it may be shaped such that it
will fit reasonably or sufficiently accurately in several
different makes of sales pots 32. Normally these pots have
an upper collar or shoulder 34, on which the production pot
8 1321~
collar 25 may hang, whereby it is unimportant whether or
not the production pot will reach down to the bottom of
the sales pot. Also, the inner collar 25 may center the
production pot 24 in the sales pot 32 reasonably accurately,
also when the pot 24 is rested primarily by standing on the
bottom of the pot 32; it should not, however, ex-tend beyond
the top of the outer pot 32. In practice, therefore, but a
few different sizes of the production pots 2 may be used with
a wide variety of commercial sales pots 32.
The invention is not limited to the embodiments shown in
the drawing, already because the lower end of the plant
tubes 6 may be shaped otherwise, e.g. for cooperation with
an upwardly pointed structure 26 at the bottom of the pro-
duction pot. Also, the plant tube 6 may be made as an inte-
gral part of the production pot; the plant tube should havea nice looking appearance, but even if it is made from reuse
plastic it may be provided with an attractive surface, e.g.
by cork dust or small cork pieces secured by glueing.
~lso, it will be within the scope of the invention to pro-
~0 duce the special production pot in a quality rendering it
usable directly as a sales pot, although it may then have
to be cleaned before delivery.
