Plant stake

A telescoping plant stake employing a number of telescoping tubular elements, each of which are fitted with a highly resilient friction element at their inner end. The friction element is secured in a groove with its outermost surface extending slightly above the surface of the tubular member with which it is associated and includes a plurality of diamond like protuberances spaced around the periphery which assume compressive engagement with the encircling tube for that member.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The traditional plant holding stake has been either a piece of wood or in 
certain circumstances, bark which is inserted in a pot for outdoor or 
indoor plants and inserted on the ground adjacent to the plant for outdoor 
plants. Such wooden stakes typically are not adjustable in height and are 
placed when the plant is young, selected so they will have sufficient 
height throughout the growing life of the plant. If the plant is an 
ornamental plant, the plant stake invariably detracts from the overall 
appearance. For this reason, such natural appearing materials such as bark 
stakes have been used and conventional wooden stakes have been stained in 
a natural color such as green or brown. Still they obvoiusly present the 
appearance of a foreign element in the environment. 
A number of telescoping plant stakes have been developed of simple design 
and some include such complex additions as automatic waterer's and the 
like using the body of the plant stake as a conduit for water from an 
uppermost reservoir. 
Despite the many telescoping plant stakes which have been developed, none 
have reached the acceptance of the market place to any extent for a number 
of reasons. One is that producing a telescoping stake of any size and any 
number of sections is significantly more expensive than a simple wooden 
stake. More importantly, plant stakes of a telescoping variety have quite 
ofter been unreliable in holding their position. It is essential that a 
telescoping plant stake be extended to the required length whereupon it 
provides support for the leaves but also maintains its position without 
collapsing. 
BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE INVENTION 
I have combined in a simple, low cost telescoping plant stake ease of 
adjustment plus reliable positioning to afford steady support for a plant 
and assurance that it will not collapse despite the normal movement and 
forces encountered when a plant is bent or accidently brushed by a 
passerby. It involves basically an improved friction element secured to 
the inner end of each telescoping section which engages the interior wall 
of its enclosing section in a number of spaced points and at intimate 
local contact with the enclosing sections.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
Now referring to FIG. 1, a plant stake 10 in accordance with this invention 
may be seen as including a plurality of, for example, three sections, 11, 
12, and 13, respectively, which are telescoping to allow adjustment of the 
height of the stake to the requirements for plant support. The stake is 
located in a pot 14 holding a plant 15 which is secured to the stake by 
one or more plant ties 20. The plant stake 10 by its adjustable feature, 
allows it to be elongated only to the distance required and as the plant 
ties 20. When moved to a new position by slight finger pressure, the user 
may be assured that it will remain at that elongated position as long as 
he so desires. The plant stakes of this invention are preferably of 
natural color, e.g. green, plastic of materials which are non-corrosive 
and inert with respect to planter mix and the plant. Employing plastic 
material, the color may be molded in permanently. 
Now referring to FIG. 2, the details by which the plant stakes of this 
invention may be maintained accurately positioned may be seen. FIG. 2 
shows a section through the junction between the telescoping tubular 
members 11 and 12, however, it is identical except for size with the 
similar junctions between the telescoping members 12 and 13. 
In FIG. 2 it may be seen that the telescoping member 11 includes at its 
upper end a collar 21 with a tubular extension tube 22. This collar 21 is 
typically of molded plastic material and is cemented in place to the tube 
11 after the tube 12 assembly has been inserted. The tube 12 at its lower 
end includes a plug 25 having an outer flange 26 at its lower end. The 
plug extends into the interior of the tube 12 and similar to the collar 21 
is cemented in place. Between the end of tube 12 and the inner face of the 
flange 26, the washer 30 of this invention is located within an annular 
groove defined by the end of the tube 12, a portion of the plug 25 and the 
inner face flange 26. The washer of friction element 30 ring is made of a 
soft elasomeric material such as polyvinyl chloride of 40 shore hardness 
and includes the shape of basically 0 ring configuration with the 
exception that it includes spaced protuberances 31 best seen in FIGS. 3 
and 4, on the outer surface in diamond like configuration. In the drawing 
FIG. 4, it may be seen that for such diamond like protuberances, 31 are 
employed. In FIG. 2 as may be apparent, the protuberances are 
substantially compressed by engagement with the inner wall of tube 11 so 
that the washer 30 takes on the general appearance of an O ring. It has 
been found however than when plain surfaced O rings have been employed, an 
unsatisfactory holding results. The addition of protuberances by way of 
contrast provide descrete areas in a high degree of compressive stress and 
locally engage the outer tube 11. The use of the protuberances 31 allows 
light finger adjustment of the extent of elongation of the tubes 11-13 
without a loss of resiliency or sticking as often occurs in O ring type 
telescoping members. It must be recognized that when a plant is in place 
and a plant stake is present, only a light force is wanted to make the 
size adjustment to avoid any unnecessary disturbance of the plant and root 
structure. By the addition of the protuberances as so described, a 
reliable easily adjusted but solidly holding telescoping plant stake has 
been achieved. 
The above described embodiments of this invention are merely descriptive of 
its principles and are not to be considered limiting. The scope of this 
invention instead shall be determined from the scope of the following 
claims including their equivalents.