Patent Application
20170181390
This present embodiment relates to bottomless garden plant containers and, more particularly, to a bottomless garden plant container that conserves water and prevents unwanted water waste, including the prevention of pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer contamination due to uncontrolled water runoff.
Plant and flower gardening has been around since the beginning of civilization and with it comes the continuous need for fertilizer, weed and pest prevention, and water—lots and lots of water. Water has always been a precious, and, an invaluable resource, and in today's world it is even more so, and the need for conserving it is at an all-time high. Nearly every home—in nearly every place—has an area where they will tend to have plants and flowers growing, or someone attempting to do so. According to the article, Blades of glory: America's love affair with lawns in the Jun. 24, 2011 edition of the magazine, The Week, about 80 percent of American homes have yards—and based on the 2011 American Housing Survey of the United States, there are approximately 100 million houses in America. This means there are approximately 80 million American yards, or variants of yards, that can be landscaped—and landscapes need watering.
The scope of this embodiment does not deal with watering lawns—its focus is primarily with the many flowering annuals, perennials, bulbs, small to larger shrubs, and all the varying things gardeners like to plant in the soil of all these yards aside from lawn. This equates to lots of watering, fertilizing, herbicides, and the applying of pesticides; and herein lies the problem: lots of water, contaminated with fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides can end up flowing away from the target plant and/or flowers towards areas for which they were not intended. Every day there is someone somewhere watering a plant in their garden; and along with them are the gardening enthusiasts, who out of love for their little botanical friends, are diligently applying fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. One outcome that these well-meaning groups can have in common is this: more-often-than-not they watch helplessly as much of the needed water, and gardening additives, flow to surrounding areas and away from the plant for which they were intended; and in today's world water has become a commodity, and its conservation is a responsibility each person should participate in.
There have been attempts at correcting this seemingly universal problem for gardeners for many years and the most common solution was to build up a bowl shaped mound of soil around the base of the plant (commonly referred to as a soil watering-well) to contain the water long enough for it to percolate down to the plant's roots. A few of the other solutions are the use of mulches piled around the plant in the hopes of retaining moisture; or stones sunk into the soil around the plant as a border, or to simply place the plant several inches below ground level.
Unfortunately the aforementioned so-called solutions, along with many others, generally fail soon after their implementation. The soil watering-wells tend to absorb water laterally as well as gravitationally and by the very act of watering are eroded away and as the soil surface gets drier water has less time to saturate before it becomes wasteful runoff and oftentimes, taking with it, gardening chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
Mulch mounds are not much better at solving the issue—in fact they can exacerbate the problem of garden chemical products like pesticides and herbicide runoff. Mulches are breeding grounds for pests like earwigs and pill-bugs to name a few, which encourages greater use of pesticides which then accumulates in the mulches; and mulches tend to float and flow with water runoff from over watering and large downpours of rain. These so-called solution failures are typical of the other solutions as well as those not mentioned. The worst consequence of these runoffs are the gardening chemicals used to help grow, and protect our garden plants, oftentimes end up flowing into street gutters, streams, ponds and other environmentally sensitive areas. Although there are various methods of trying to prevent water and chemical runoff, all, or almost all suffer from one, or more than one disadvantage. Therefore, there is a need to provide methods and apparatus for improved, and more secure methods, for the prevention of wasteful water runoff and the containment of useful gardening products to prevent them from becoming a detriment, and danger, to their surrounding environments.
As long as there are plants and water, there will be gardening—and gardening is here stay—and it can be done more effectively and environmentally friendly.
The following is a tabulation of some prior art that presently appears relevant:
I am aware of U.S. Pat. No. US 2009/0025290 A1, Jan. 29, 2009, Bottomless Plant Container which was issued to Ball Horticultural Company for growing plants in an open-bottom plant container.
I am, also aware of prior art U.S. Pat. No.: US 2002/0005011 A1 issued to Lauri and David Goldberg Jan. 17, 2002 Bottomless Compartmentalized In-Ground Garden Container.
U.S. Pat. No. U.S. 2009/0025290 A1 Open-bottom plant container is a temporary biodegradable container for transporting rooted plants for placing in their final growing site. These products are designed as only temporary containers; whereas this present embodiment of the Bottomless In-Ground Garden-Plant Watering-Well with Removable Twist-Ring is for permanent use.
Also, it is neither taught, nor suggested that U.S. Pat. No. US 2009/0025290 A1 Bottomless Plant Container is so designed as to conserve water and/or prevent the runoff of gardening chemicals or products.
U.S. Pat. No.: US 2002/0005011 A1: What is disclosed is a garden container that includes a rigid outer wall defining a perimeter and having opposite upper and lower edges around the perimeter. Its outer and inner circular walls and intersecting walls are so designed to slice into the soil.
It is neither taught, nor suggested that this bottomless container is so designed as to conserve water and/or prevent the runoff of gardening chemicals or products. It is also stated, that: “. . . substantially the container may be manually placed or depressed into the soil until the rim of the container is generally flush with the soil surface.” (Excerpt from Summary of the Invention; first paragraph, lines: 11-13).
Unfortunately being flush with the soil allows for wasteful water runoff, chemical contamination of surrounding areas and the dispersion of other gardening products. This prior art bottomless garden container has no apparatus to prevent vertical movement either upwards or downwards, which could result in all, or portions, of this prior art container sinking below ground level; and it is neither taught, nor suggested that this device was designed to prevent that from happening.
Thus several advantages of one or more aspects would be to provide a bottomless in-ground plant container that conserves water via the use of a non-eroding watering-well.
Other advantages of one or more aspects are to provide a bottomless in-ground plant container watering-well with a removal twist-ring that can be both decorative and functional.
It would further be advantageous to provide a bottomless in-ground plant container watering-well that helps protects its surrounding environments from harmful herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer runoff.
It would also be advantageous to have a bottomless in-ground plant container watering-well that protects plants and flowers from grass trimmers above ground and help prevent unwanted weeds and grass rhizomes below ground.
It would also be advantageous to have a bottomless in-ground plant container that can keep bulbs and rhizomes in one location and separate from others to help prevent unwanted color change.
It would further be advantages to have a bottomless in-ground plant container watering-well that encourages earthworm growth and population for plant and soil health.
It would also be advantages to have a bottomless in-ground plant container watering-well that directs water flow downwards to the plants roots instead of flowing away from the roots and across the soil's surface.
These and other advantages of one or more aspects will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and accompanying drawings.
In accordance with the present embodiment of the Bottomless In-Ground Garden-Plant Watering-Well with Removable Twist-Ring, there is provided an in-ground plant container that is open at both ends and is both functional and decorative. This embodiment consists of two separate parts: the plant container and the removable twist-ring. The plant container has both an above ground-level portion and a below ground-level portion. The above ground-level portion is the watering-well and in this present embodiment its lip height is 3″, and the below ground-level portion is the well barrel and in this present embodiment it is 6″. On the lip of the watering-well is a flange with three evenly spaced voids which allow for three evenly spaced flanges within the twist-ring to match up and then to securely twist-attach the twist-ring to the watering-well portion of the plant container.
Attached to the outside of the well barrel are two flanges. The first one is at ground level, and this one is the twist-ring floor, and it has three purposes: 1) a floor for the twist-ring to rest on so as to keep pests and vegetation from getting up into its undercarriage; 2) as a primary support for keeping the watering-well above ground-level; 3) and as a built-in guide for correct height placement in the ground. The second flange is attached at the base and this flange is to prevent the plant container from upward vertical movement and is a secondary support for keeping the watering-well above ground-level. Also attached to the outside of the well barrel and to the bottom flange are four evenly spaced vertical fins for overall strength and support, and the prevention of lateral circular movement, especially from the repeated removing and replacing of the twist-ring.
The twist-ring's inner circumference aligns with the inner circumference of the plant container, and the twist-ring's outer circumference width aligns with the circumference of the twist-ring's floor. This ring is designed for ease of removal and replacement by either twisting left or right; aligning marks are visually placed on the inside walls on both the twist-ring and the watering-well for ease of ring centering; however, exact centering with the marks is not necessary for a secure attachment. The twist-ring is both functional and decorative; and is the third support for preventing the watering-well from sinking to, or below, ground-level.
A complete understanding of the present embodiment may be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings, when considered in conjunction with the subsequent, detailed description, in which:
Before this first embodiment of a Bottomless In-Ground Garden-Plant Watering-Well with Removable Twist-Ring, along with its methods are disclosed and described, it is to be understood that this first embodiment is not limited to the particular configurations, sizes, or materials disclosed herein as such configurations, sizes, and materials may vary somewhat; nor are any concept illustrations or diagrams to be construed as limiting. It is also to be understood that the terminology employed is used for the purpose of describing this particular embodiment and is not intended to be limiting; however, for brevity's sake throughout the description, the Bottomless In-Ground Garden-Plant Watering-Well with Removable Twist-Ring will be referenced by its two basic parts: twist-ring and watering-well; and/or as: twist-ring watering-well.
A twist-ring watering-well will generally have its above ground portion that makes up the watering-well bowl 132 of the watering-well to have an approximate height of around 3 inches to insure suitable water volume, and to also act as a plant guard, with or without the twist-ring 120 attached, for ease of trimmer use during routine lawn maintenance. The twist-ring 120 in this embodiment has two walls, an outer and an inner; the twist-ring inner wall 124 is thicker for added strength as it has three evenly spaced twist-attach flanges 126. The circumference of the top opening of the twist-ring 120 is smaller than its bottom circumference so that it aligns up with, and rests on, the inner circumference of the lip-attach flange 130 of the watering well giving the twist-ring 120 added support. The circumference of the twist-ring outer wall 122 aligns with, and rests on, the outer circumference of the twist-ring floor 134; the twist-ring inner wall 124 of the twist-ring 120 also rests on the twist-ring floor 134. The twist-ring 120 is attached or detached by aligning the three twist-attach flanges 126 with the three matching slots in the lip-attach flange 130 of the watering-well and twisting either to the left or to the right. The twist-ring 120 is one of several support mechanisms for keeping the watering-well bowl 132 above ground-level.
The watering-well has both an above-ground portion and a below-ground portion. The above-ground portion is the watering-well bowl 132 and replaces its organic counterpart, the soil watering-well. The lip-attach flange 130 is the top edge of the bowl. To keep the watering-well bowl 132 at its 3 inch height above ground-level is another support mechanism, the twist-ring floor 134; it is attached to the outside circumference of the watering-well bowl 132 where the bowl meets the soil of the well barrel 136 and it rests on the surface of the ground. The twist-ring floor 134 also works as a guide for proper depth placement of the watering-well. The below-ground portion is the well barrel 136 and in this embodiment it has a depth of 6 inches. Attached to the outside of the well barrel 136 just below the twist-ring floor 134 are four evenly spaced vertical stabilizer fins 138 to help in the prevention of lateral movement and loosening in the soil from repeated twist-ring 120 attachments and removals. Attached to the outer circumference of the well barrel 136 base and to the stabilizer fins 138 is the horizontal stabilizer flange 140 to help prevent vertical upward movement and loosening of the watering-well from repeated twist-ring 120 attachments and removals, and general soil movement; the horizontal stabilizer flange 140 is too, another mechanism for preventing the watering-well bowl 132 from sinking to, or below, ground-level.
Since other modifications and changes varied to fit particular operating requirements and environments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention is not considered limited to the examples chosen for purposes of disclosure, and covers all changes and modifications which do not constitute departures from the true spirit and scope of this invention.
Having thus described the invention, what is desired to be protected by Letters Patent is presented in the subsequently appended claims.
Continuation-in-part; Application #: 23614068; Filed Sep. 26, 2015, for BOTTOMLESS IN-GROUND WATER CONSERVATION AND CONTAMINATION PREVENTION GARDEN-PLANT WATERING-WELL; by Donald E. Harris, Sr.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 14866845 | Sep 2015 | US |
| Child | 15068550 | US |
