A Plant Wall Built From Stacked Plates Seedlings Clamped Between Layers, Roots Inside a Shared Cavity

This application covers a soil-less plant container made by stacking flat plates, each with a hole through the middle, so that the holes line up into one hidden cavity. Seeds, cuttings or young plants are laid between the plates and clamped there, so the roots grow into the cavity where they are fed nutrient solution while the leaves grow out through the thin slots between plates. It was filed by an individual, Clemens Erbacher, who is also the named inventor, and it is a divisional of Australian application 2024203209. The claims go well beyond the container itself, reaching into elastic bands, planting patterns made of living plants, assembly machines and a business model.

The Problem

The specification opens with a short state-of-the-art statement. Soil-less containers are already known, including ones that let plants grow out of slits while the roots inside are supplied with nutrient solution. What the inventor says the market had not tried is building the root space from a series of individual plates laid on top of each other, a construction that also suits machine or automated assembly.

Two further gaps are named. First, no automated process or device is known by which a container with planting material can be loaded quickly, for example by a belt. Second, the inventor knows of no process or machine that prints plant signs and patterns into containers in an automated or computer-controlled way, with plants that go on growing. The document describes the result as the first soil-less, “printable”, living lightweight wall, with advantages of simpler and more uniform use.

The text is a loose translation, apparently from German, and it reads like a working note more than a conventional patent description. That matters for how much can be said: the specification gives no dimensions, no plant yields and no test results.

What This Invention Does

Claim 1 is a container of “various geometry” for soil-less plant culture, made from many single plates. Each plate has a breakthrough from its upper side to its bottom side. Laid above each other and fixed together, with a closed uppermost cover plate and a lowest closed collection or outlet plate, they form a relatively closed container around a shared hollow space. Plant parts such as roots, rhizomes and tubers sit in that space and are supplied with nutrient solution. Plant matter is placed between the plates, so that roots develop inside and the other parts of the same plant grow outward through the slots between plates. The container is held together by fixing aids, either permanently or so it can be taken apart again, and a nutrient solution supply system, recirculating or externally supplied, distributes liquid inside.

Claim 2 is the matching procedure for assembling and operating such a container. The description fills in how this works. The plates are thin, flat and stackable without wobbling, in any colour, made from a relatively waterproof, stable and chemically inert material. A drip or spray pipe can run through the cavity, and pump, fogger or other equipment can sit inside or outside. The bottom collecting plate gathers surplus solution and can drain it away or recirculate it. A threaded rod through all the plates, with nuts at each end, is the main fixing example, though clamps, rubber bands, glue and knob-and-groove fits are also listed.

The dependent claims then build outward. Claim 3 adds a relatively elastic band, such as hardened foam or pond filter tissue, laid between all plates as a separating layer that is water permeable and penetrable by roots, with a possible sealing effect. Claim 4 describes folding that band back on itself so one continuous strip runs through every slot. Claim 6 covers equipping the container so that the planted material forms a pattern, sign, symbol or coloured surface as it grows, with each “plant pixel” assigned a place, taking plate height, plate length and slot height into account. Claim 7 is a machine that combines plates, plant matter and band, and claim 8 is software, templates or punch cards that steer such machines. Claim 9 and claim 30 are business model claims covering webshop and mobile app ordering, advertising surfaces and licensing.

The remaining claims are a catalogue of variants. A container made only from the band and plants with no rigid plates (claim 10), wrapped in a perforated foil skin to cut evaporation (claim 11), installed along a slope (claim 12), a woven or braided coir substrate matrix that can be compressed for transport and expanded with water (claims 15 and 16), spoon-shaped trays that hold sprouting potatoes, ginger or other tubers (claims 17 to 19), an egg-carton style sound-absorbing outer surface (claim 20), plates stacked at angles other than horizontal (claim 23), plates of initially soft material that harden or are 3D printed (claim 24), and a spiral rather than stacked layout (claim 27). Claims 14, 17 and 20 refer to plant towers and soil-less containers described under the reference PCT/EP2015/000132 and to a named product from another party, so the inventor frames parts of this as add-ons for existing systems.

Key Features

• Plates with aligned holes form the cavity. Each plate has a breakthrough from top to bottom, and the stack of them makes one shared hollow space for roots, nutrient solution and distribution equipment.
• Planting between the plates. Seeds, seedlings, cuttings or developed plants are laid on the top edge of a plate and clamped by the plate above, so the roots end up inside and the shoots grow outward through the slots.
• Closed top and collecting bottom. A closed cover plate sits above the cavity and can carry nutrient supply lines; a collecting plate below catches surplus solution and drains or recirculates it.
• Elastic band between layers. A water-permeable, root-penetrable strip cushions the plant material, seals the gaps and can run continuously through every slot by being folded back on itself.
• Living patterns. Plants of known colour are placed in assigned positions (“plant pixels”) so a sign or image shows as the plants grow, with the placement planned by software and executed by assembly machines.
• Many fixing and shape options. Threaded rods, clamps, hooks, open-backed stacks hung on a facade, and a rear opening shaped like a halved figure eight giving two separate cavities are all described.

Who Is Behind It

The applicant and sole inventor is an individual, Clemens Erbacher, listed twice on the title page. The agent for the application is also Clemens Erbacher, at an address in Auckland, New Zealand, so he appears to be acting for himself. I found no company website for him and have no other background to add.

His earlier work is easy to trace. A Google Patents record, US20170150686A1, lists him as inventor of a “Container for supplying plant roots with nutrient solution without the use of soil”, filed 23 January 2015, with an indicated priority date of 24 January 2014. That patent describes a container for hydroponic or aeroponic growing with a separating slot that grips the plant stem gently while letting it grow out, and is shown as abandoned. This earlier family is a different one from the present divisional, and I could not confirm from that page whether it is the PCT/EP2015/000132 mentioned in the claims, so the link is only context.

On priority, this specification is silent. The title page records it as a divisional of Australian application 2024203209, and the text has no cross-reference paragraph or convention claim. No priority chain is asserted here, and the Priority Country entry in the table below is “Not stated”.

Why It Matters

Soil-less growing is attractive in cities because it saves weight and water. Hydroponics feeds roots with nutrient solution rather than soil, aeroponics does it with mist, and vertical farming stacks it in layers. Plant-covered facades, known as green walls, usually need a substantial frame, soil or felt pockets and a plumbing system installed on site.

This application argues for a different assembly route: a factory-built stack of plates that can be loaded with plants by machine, shipped and hung. The distinctive commercial idea is the planting-as-display claim, where the living wall carries a logo or pattern ordered through a webshop. That makes the claims as much about a product-and-service model as about hardware.

The honest caveats are that the document gives no growth data, no dimensions and no evidence that the patterned-wall idea works at scale, and some claims are written loosely enough (for example business model and “process according to claims 1 to 28”) that their scope would likely be tested during examination. The Australian Official Journal entry means the application is open for inspection only; it has not been examined or granted here.

Related Concepts

• Hydroponics – growing plants in nutrient solution instead of soil, the basis of the cavity feeding system.
• Aeroponics – growing roots in air or mist, an option for the spray pipe and fogger in the cavity.
• Vertical farming – growing crops in stacked layers, the wider setting for a stacked plate container.
• Green wall – vegetation-covered vertical surfaces, the facade use the document describes.
• 3D printing – one of the ways claim 24 says the plates could be made.

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AU 2026202249 was published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents on 9 April 2026 and is open for public inspection. Patent applications represent inventions that are sought to be protected and do not necessarily reflect commercially available products.