size changing plant pot

Plants outgrow pots, requiring ever-bigger sizes and more soil as their root systems expand – making this simple design idea an ingenious way to avoid having to upgrade by buying a new pot at each stage of growth.

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size white flower pot

A wide base contains rings that can hold flexible plastic sides in place, allowing them to be slotted into to create a small, medium or large-size enclosure within. Moving parts are kept to a minimum, cheap materials are used and the result is correspondingly so commonplace that you might almost miss just how clever it is at first glance.

Designer Jun Bum Park created this transforming size-changing pot with everyday use in mind. The style is kept simple and easy to clean after shifting soil and plants between sizes: minimalist white matte plastic for the bottom piece, which looks fine whether the curved siding is set to the largest or smallest diameter available.

see through glass flower pot

These kinds of simple-but-creative plant pot innovations are becoming increasingly popular, with variants like these clear-plastic, see-through pots made by designers like Josep Armengol.

The idea here is that you can take the same basic shape of a traditional potting device and make the container have an additional layer of (literal and metaphorical) transparency of function, not to mention ease of watering since you can see the level to which you pour. Obviously, it doesn’t allow growth like the other design, but it’s a novel twist on the same old same old planter pot.

The only question is: does the result constitute creative decor or are the soil details more than most of us want to see on a day-to-day basis in our homes? The answer probably depends on your personal views about dirt. In any case, it’s always fun to move beyond the basic forms an object has had for centuries and experiment without affecting how useful it is.