Growers shipping their products to distant places encountered the difficulty of having the live plants arrive both alive and without damage. Damage occurs when the plants, and/or the growing medium, becomes dislodged from the containers. This is especially a problem when the shipping container becomes inverted during transportation. When inverted, the weight of the containers crushes the plants so that upon arrival the plants are no longer usable.
The present solution is to offer credits and rebates for the plants damaged during shipping. Previous attempts at shipping live products have included the use of plastic overwrap. This approach has the drawback that live plants need exposure to air and sealing them with plastic does not allow respiration necessary for live plants. Another approach has been to use a plastic netting to hold the plants within their containers. Netting has proved insufficient in that plants are still able to fit within holes in the netting and become damaged.
There is a need in the art for a system for shipping live plants that protects plants from becoming dislodged from their containers and prevents crushing of the plants if the container becomes inverted during shipping.
It is an object of the invention to provide a system for shipping live plants.
It is another object of the invention to provide a covering for plants within containers maintaining the plant within the container but allowing for respiration.
It is another object of the invention to provide a shipping system preventing crushing of plants when the shipping container is inverted.
It is another object of the invention to provide a shipping system for live plants minimizing the loss of plants during shipping.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a shipping system which is simple and inexpensive to use.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a shipping system for live plants that safely ships a multitude of plants simultaneously.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art after reviewing the disclosure of the invention.