PVC Sheet Plant Support

The house plant seen above, has a weak stem which cannot hold its own weight to remain in an upright position. I therefore replanted this into a larger pot and then created an “PVC sheet-plant-support-tube” to keep the plant in an upright position.

This same principle was used in the creation of the “Trashcan Extension” which is also made of a rolled piece of PVC sheet. When boys learn to do one project, like a trashcan extension, then they can easily apply the same techniques to create something like an PVC Sheet Plant Support Tube also.

Above I simply took some scrap PVC sheet and formed it into a tube and then riveted it in place just as I did with the Trashcan Extension.

Again, see the link “Trashcan Extension” for more details.

The clear PVC sheet tube works well for this plant because the plant can still receive full-sunshine while being fully supported by the clear PVC sheet tube. Previously, we used an old chopstick stuck vertically in the pot and tried to wire the plant to the stick for support. But this plant has such delicate stems that the wire fastening the plant to the chopstick would cause the stem to break where it contacted the stem.

This PVC sheet plant support allows full sunshine to reach the plant because it is transparent. As the plant grows, I just direct the stems to follow the edge of the top of the plant support tube. I turn the pot periodically so that the top of the stems are facing the sunlight (so all of the growing leaves will have sunlight strike their top surfaces).

Once the plant as grown around the top of the tube, I can then replace the tube with a taller plant support tube of the same PVC sheet material. In this manner, the plant can grow steadily higher by increasing the height of the PVC plant growth tube as the plant grows long enough to need more vertical growing space.