Tag Archives: plant care

Bring The Sunlight Into Your Homes Even Through The Night

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Don’t get enough sunlight at home to grow your plants? This one is for you! In the ever-evolving world of smart technology, there’s a new contender that’s set to revolutionize the way we care for our indoor plants – Equinox. More than just a grow light, Equinox is a meticulously designed product that mimics the natural orbit of the sun, ensuring your pet plants receive the optimal light they need for robust growth and vitality.

Designer: Yechan Choi (Yekki)

Equinox takes its inspiration from the celestial dance of the sun around the Earth, specifically designed to replicate the sun’s position in the sky. The name itself, Equinox, signifies the time when day and night are of equal length, a crucial period in the natural world. This smart grow light is engineered to provide your plants with the same quality and intensity of light they would receive outdoors.

One of the standout features of Equinox is its ability to provide light at the same angle as the sun. This is achieved through a sophisticated system of LEDs that move in calculated angles over time. By utilizing sunrise and sunset time data, Equinox ensures that your plants receive the right spectrum of light throughout the day, promoting photosynthesis and fostering healthy growth.

Equinox goes beyond traditional grow lights by integrating Internet of Things (IoT) technology. With built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, you can effortlessly control the brightness and color temperature of the lights using a dedicated app on your smartphone. The app allows for easy customization, ensuring that your plants receive the perfect amount of light at any given time.

Adding an extra layer of convenience, physical dials on the Equinox device itself offer a tactile and intuitive way to adjust settings. This combination of high-tech connectivity and user-friendly controls makes Equinox accessible to all, from seasoned plant enthusiasts to those new to indoor gardening.

Equinox recognizes that your plants have different needs during the day and night. During the daytime, you can simulate the vibrancy of the outdoors with bright, clear light that encourages active photosynthesis. As night falls, you have the option to create a cozy and comfortable atmosphere for both you and your plants by switching to warmer-colored light.

This adaptability ensures that your indoor space remains both functional and aesthetically pleasing, with Equinox seamlessly integrating into your daily routine. Equinox not only benefits your plants but also contributes to a more sustainable future. By providing the right amount of light precisely when needed, it minimizes energy waste, making it an eco-friendly choice for conscientious consumers.

Equinox is more than just a grow light; it’s a technological marvel that brings the beauty and precision of nature into your home. From its celestial design to its intelligent programming and user-friendly controls, Equinox sets a new standard for indoor plant care. Embrace the future of gardening with Equinox, and watch your plants thrive under its nurturing light.

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Minimalist plant shelf lets you “carry” your plants easily around the house

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One of the lifestyles that sprouted during the pandemic that still carries over during these almost post-pandemic times is the emergence of the plant parents. I still wasn’t able to bring out my green thumb even though I tried taking care of one or two, they would eventually die. I’m still open to trying again so I’m on the lookout for things that may help me finally be able to keep a plant alive for more than two weeks.

Designer: Only Studio, Jason Luo, Sam Cheng

Ta’care is a minimal plant shelf that is easy to carry around so you can move your plants where you need them to be whether you have a small space or a bigger one. It has a simple design with a clean structure and monochromatic color. It is more functional than decorative and will allow your plants to be the main focus, as they should be.

It is made from simple metal tubes and sheets and the top part forms a handle that allows you to carry the shelf with the plants so you can bring them to the balcony or near the window so they can get natural sunlight or bring to the living room to protect them from the weather.

In case there is a lack of natural light, Ta’care also has 6 full LED lights to give your plants the light it needs to survive. This is also easily customizable so it can adapt to the number of shelves or levels as well as the design that you actually need to keep your plant babies not just alive but also looking good.

It’s probably not a guarantee that if I use this plant shelf, my plants will stay alive. But it probably gives them a better chance at least of being carried around to a space where they can get better light and air. And it looks pretty so there’s that bonus as well.

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This tabletop ‘mushroom growing kit’ lets you harvest all kinds of exotic organic mushrooms at home

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Ever tried a Lion’s Mane Mushroom? How about Shimeji? Pink Oyster? Surely you must have tried Cordyceps. No?? That’s because exotic mushrooms aren’t easy to grow. Sure, button mushrooms, creminis, portobellos, they’re all easy to come by. Heck, even oyster mushrooms are now somewhat mainstream… however, rare varieties of edible mushrooms aren’t that easy to grow industrially. That’s where Shrooly comes in. Designed as a tabletop incubator, Shrooly lets you grow rare varieties of mushrooms right in your home. You can choose from over 12 different mushroom species, and it takes roughly a week for the mushrooms to grow, after which you can harvest them for meals.

Designer: Shrooly Design

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 (33% off). Hurry, only 19/75 left!

Using the Shrooly is about as simple as using a Nespresso – just put a pod in and watch the machine do the rest of the work for you. With Shrooly, however, the pod is a brick-shaped mass that contains the mushroom spores and growth medium. All you do is make a slit in the pod for the mushrooms to grow out of, add the pod into the Shrooly, press the start button, and watch the magic unfold over the next week.

The Shrooly works a lot like the autonomous planters we’ve talked about on this platform, but is specifically designed for mushrooms. Fungi are a lot more different than regular plants, and they have very specific growing requirements. They don’t need water, but they need moisture. They can grow in the dark too, but a little light helps brighten things up. Moreover, mushrooms propagate using spores, which are tiny particles that the Shrooly actively contains to ensure they don’t spread around in your house.

Everything happens within the Shrooly device. The mushroom grows within its controlled microclimate, and you can simply pop the glass side panel out to harvest your mushrooms when they’re ready. Once harvested, just discard the pod and add a new one in for a fresh harvest next week!

Designed to fit on most kitchen countertops, Shrooly helps demystify the mushroom-cultivating process. Founders David and Sam were shocked to realize that the mushroom supplements they were taking hardly had any mushroom in them. Determined to take matters into their own hands, they built the Shrooly in the hopes of letting regular people reclaim mushroom production. Shrooly’s simple design allows you to grow various varieties of mushrooms right at home with zero expertise.

The gadget monitors mushroom growth on its own, and supplies water vapor as needed based on the variety you’re growing. You can monitor the growth every day either by looking at the mushrooms through the glass chamber, or even track the growth on an app when you’re away from your Shrooly. It also houses a mini air purifier to ensure spores from the Shrooly don’t make their way out of the glass container.

Each Shrooly comes with a choice between 12 different mushroom species, with the creators adding new variants every day. Whether you’re looking for mushrooms as a meat replacement, as a delicacy, or even as a medicinal/health supplement, Shrooly’s catalog of mushroom varieties is expansive and goes well beyond the basic mushrooms you find in your everyday supermarket. Looking to grow your own mushrooms, Shrooly even sells an AnyShroom pod that contains the perfect growth medium for your mushrooms. Just add your own liquid culture to the pod and place it inside the Shrooly and you can be a fun guy grow your own fungi! The Shrooly starts at $299 and begins shipping in March 2023.

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 (33% off). Hurry, only 20/74 left!

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Planta lets you “converse” with your plants virtually

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There are a lot of devices, furniture, and accessories created for plant parents especially since the pandemic. These products help first-time and expert caretakers to maintain their green pets even when they are doing other things at home. Even though I know I probably will never have need for these things since plants die on me no matter what I do (or don’t do), I know a lot of people around me who would like to have additional help when taking care of their plants.

Designer: Doyeon Lee

Planta is a product concept for a planter that will let owners “interact” with their greens through virtual means. It will let you know the status or health condition of your plants through a “conversation” with the shadows from a beam projector. Of course, you can always just look at the plants themselves but if you’re new to taking care of plants then you may not recognize these things by sight. The device will help you know through other, virtual means.

The projector shows shadows that indicate your plant’s health. If there’s a low shadow then it means you need to water them. Then you’ll see the shadows become “vibrant” and even sway around to let you know they’re healthy. There is also an automatic motion sensor that will illuminate the plant side if it detects you’re there and then the projection plate slide when there’s no motion around it. You’ll also receive the remaining cultivation and harvest time through a graphic user interface.

There is of course a lamp in the device that can automatically turn on when it needs a light source. Underneath that is the space where you put your plants. There are six holes where you can plant them in and then harvest them later on. There is a wall at the back where the virtual shadows will be projected on and which will show you if your plants are happy with the way you’re taking care of them. This seems to be a pretty useful device for those who are new to being plant parents although this black thumb of mine will most likely still kill anything green that passes my way.

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Plant butler concept keeps an eye on your green pets

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During the pandemic, a lot of people turned to taking care of plants in their homes to help them destress and cope with all the trauma. Since we were all mostly staying at home, it was easy to monitor these plants most of the time. But now that a lot of people are going back to work in their offices or traveling for longer periods of time, it can be a bit more challenging to keep an eye on the plants that we leave at home. So product designers have been coming up with various concepts to help plant mommies and daddies take care of their “pets”.

Designers: Yunjeong Bae, Eojin Roh

This concept product is something that can serve as a butler for your plants that are left at home. Its name is Purtler or a combination of plant and butler. It doesn’t necessarily roll off the tongue that easily but there’s room for improvement later on. But for now, this is what we’re calling this device that will be able to take a closer look at your plants through a camera and a connected app. It should help plant owners, particularly the ones who may still be relatively new to this.

The design of the Purtler is inspired by plants and organic lifeforms to match what it’s supposed to be watching. The stand looks like a long piece of leaf with water droplets. The bottom part can even serve as a shelf for items like books and other decorations. But the main thing that you’ll notice is that there’s an “eye” at the top which is actually where the camera is placed. The device that looks like a web camera lets you take a closer look at how things like temperature and humidity affect the plants.

There’s a product render of how the app looks like and it is where you’ll be able to keep track of information regarding your plants. It doesn’t really show how exactly the plants are monitored but what it would look like within the app. The camera part is not necessarily hidden as the designers wanted it to literally keep an eye on your plants. It’s also designed to be part of your furniture as the leaf silhouette can add to the ambiance of your living room.

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Plant-growing device helps dementia patients improve memory

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There are a lot of elderly (and some not so elderly) people suffering from dementia around the world. Various studies have shown that taking care of plants is one way to help them as this hobby encourages sensory stimulation and can improve things like memory retention and attention span. Taking care of living things can also give the a sense of purpose. So this is one of the things that doctors are prescribing for their patients. This also means there’s room in the market for new products to serve this purpose for dementia patients.

Designer: Sungchae Park

This concept for a plant cultivation product is called plan.t, a play on the word plant and planning for tomorrow, something that dementia patients may have trouble doing. The designer thought of horticultural treatment as an aid to help those suffering from this condition, not as a cure but to help slow down the effects of the disease. As they grow the plants using this device, the hope is that their memories will be able to grow or improve alongside the greens.

The plan.t device lets the user track the progress of the plants that they’re growing in it through voice recording. They will be able to go back to these recordings to check on them and make sure that what they remember from the last time they adjusted or managed the plants are correct. The machine itself looks like a humidifier but with a plant growing in it, surrounded by soil and with water and light to help it grow.

The renders show that it can grow different kinds of plants. There’s a tray underneath where water can be stored and there’s a lamp at the top which can adjust to the height of the plant. You will be able to power and recharge the device through a USB port at the back. There’s no other information about what other functions the plan.t has but there should be other tools to help dementia patients as they cultivate their plants in the device.

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Krado Plant Sensor will help you get information about your plant babies

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Over the past couple of years, my social media feed has been filled with friends becoming plant mommies and daddies during the pandemic. Of course, I tried to do a bit of greening my apartment but very minimally since I knew my capability or, rather, lack of capability of taking care of plants. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, both plants died. Now, if I had some physical and digital tools to help me out, I probably may have done better.

Designer: Hatch Duo

If something like the Krado Plant Sensor actually exists, then maybe my poor two plants had a better chance of survival. It’s the hardware component of the Leaflet Plant Care System, whose main purpose is to help people grow healthy plants. The sensor is something you put in the soil with your plants, and it will be able to transmit information to the mobile app so you will be able to adjust how you’re taking care of them.

The plant sensor is able to monitor things like soil moisture, ambient temperature, humidity, and light. These are critical factors that will affect the health of your plants, and if you’re like me, that’s pretty clueless about these things, then it might give me helpful information. The app connected to it will also give you actionable guidance based on these factors like buying and shipping fertilizer, potting soil, pesticides, etc.

The sensor itself looks like a thermometer but with a leaf at the top. There are different colored lights that may indicate specific conditions that will alert you (well if you’ve memorized what the colors stand for). In terms of sustainability, it is 100% 3D printed and it also uses the latest additive manufacturing practices. Another added bonus to this is that all the information collected through the sensor will contribute to botanical research. The research will tell us what’s the best environment for specific plans to grow.

I don’t know if having this sensor will definitely improve my still non-existent plant growing skills. But it might actually let them live beyond the average of two weeks life cycle that they get with me.

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This horticultural light + watering system takes 360° care of your indoor plants

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CURA is an all-encompassing plant-growth apparatus that takes care of the light and water requirements for any plant. Its automated systems can be programmed to suit the light requirements for flowering plants, air-purifying plants, herbaceous plants, or decorative plants, and when CURA’s halo-shaped lamp isn’t nourishing your plant, it can be turned into an ambient light that adds a pop of color to your space!

Designer: Arun Raj

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $99 (40% off). Hurry, only 4/13 left! Raised over $130,000.

Available in 3 sizes and across floor-standing, tabletop, and wall-mounted varieties, CURA is a halo-shaped horticultural light that’s designed to activate and promote plant growth. Powered by OSRAM LEDs, the lamp can output different wavelengths of light that help create the right growth conditions for different types of plants. CURA comes with presets for Herbs & Greens, Flowers & Fruits, Germination, Indoor Garden Plants, and more, while also handling different stages in a plant’s growth cycle, from germination to flower and fruit-bearing stages.

Stimulates photosynthesis and promotes biomass growth, essential for reproductive functions.

CURA achieves this by relying on two grades of full-spectrum white LEDs as well as blue and red LEDs. Depending on the preset (and you can make your own), the LEDs generate the right wavelength of light that’s required for different plants to grow. CURA’s automated system switches the light on around sunrise, and automatically powers off post-sunset. The lamp can either be programmed to work automatically or can be configured using CURA’s smartphone app, allowing you to effectively play horticulturist with your indoor plants.

When the lamp isn’t actively helping grow your plant, it also comes with an Ambient Mode that turns it into an ambient ring light that can be configured to glow in any color to give your plant and your room a wash of light. Moreover, the lamp in Ambient Mode can also be configured to dynamically respond to music… so that humans can enjoy the CURA experience too!

The CURA light is easy to install and sits on a mount that’s height-adjustable and can also swivel 180°. The ring-shaped LED light connects to a power source, and can even be daisy-chained together to create a system of CURA lights for multiple plants. The light’s halo shape, however, plays two important roles – for starters, it provides a hollow space for your plant to grow through (especially if it’s a large, fast-growing plant), or conversely, lets you attach a CURA Pump that autonomously waters your plants, taking care of virtually every aspect of the plant-growing process.

CURA comes from the folks at Altifarm Enverde, the same guys who created the Herbstation and the Pico Planter that collectively raised over $2 million and shipped to more than 20,000 backers. While Herbstation and Pico were both planter-based devices, CURA is their first planter-agnostic lamp that works with any existing potted plant you may have.

Its 3 sizes and mounting capabilities give you the flexibility to literally install it anywhere and with any plant you’ve got, and the companion CURA app lets you remotely control multiple lamps around the house. If that wasn’t impressive enough, the CURA lights are all compatible with your smart home and can be controlled merely by voice commands. Who knew we’d finally see voice-controlled plants in 2022??

You can pre-order your own CURA light through their Kickstarter campaign. Each CURA light comes in 3 premium finishes with an aluminum construction along with a durable polycarbonate front cover. The CURA lights are USB-C powered and run on a 5V power supply. Each light ships with a brass suspension kit, an adaptor for the CURA pump, and a charging cable. The mounting systems and the CURA pump are available as add-ons to your pledge.

Click Here to Buy Now: $59 $99 (40% off). Hurry, only 4/13 left! Raised over $130,000.

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This hanging wire shelving is designed to showcase each plants individuality and unique purpose!

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REN is a flagship plant store committed to revitalizing dying plants and showcasing each plant for its individuality and unique needs.

Whenever we want to bring some life to our rooms, filling them up with mini indoor gardens usually does the trick. However, taking care of plants comes with its own list of challenges–keeping tabs on the amount of sunlight and water required for certain plants to thrive can get overwhelming. Sooner than we know it, our favorite plants are dying and we’re back at square one. In Mita, Tokyo, social advocacy design studio Nosigner opened REN, a flagship ornamental plant store whose aim is to bring life back to dying plants.

Under close leadership from Nobuaki Kawarhara, fourth-generation Tokyo Ikebana, REN is operated by a team of plant caretakers who specialize in the Japanese art of Ikebana, or the art of flower arrangement. Considering the launch of REN, Nosigner suggests that our love for ornamental plants dates back to our primitive memories of living in forests. Once towns and cities became popularized in the 19th-century, our close proximity to forests and plant life to replaced with city infrastructure and paved roads. Since then, we’ve been craving the presence of greenery in our rooms and day-to-day lives.

REN is a flagship store focused on revitalizing our relationship to plants, noting that, “Ornamental plants brought in to create a pseudo-natural atmosphere in indoor spaces are not adapted to the environment and are therefore weak and often die. While we need ornamental plants, we also have a distorted relationship with them as part of our ecosystem.”

In designing REN’s interior space, Nosigner aimed to look at the room as a single vase to accentuate the beauty of each plant. Swapping out the number of plants for quality, Nosigner built a moveable wire shelf that weaves throughout the entire store, providing individual shelves where each plant is showcased for its vitality and unique personality.

Designer: NOSIGNER

This hexagonal indoor planter system helps you choose plants that will flourish in your home’s natural lighting

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If you like gardening but live in a city apartment, finding out which plants thrive best changes everything. It could mean finding that exact time during the day when a sliver of sunlight hits your floor, giving your bamboo palms the energy needed to make it to another day. Or, it might mean finding the sweet spot in your kitchen or bathroom where you can water your ivy and let it properly drain. Whatever the case might be, Gromeo is a miniature living wall system, designed by Habitat Horticulture to bring us the ideal plant for our unique living spaces. Whether you live in an apartment with ample sunlight or in an apartment without windows, Gromeo delivers plants that are known to thrive in your specific living space.

I’ve got a fever for plants. It’s safe to say, especially with quarantine, we’ve all caught some of it at this point. But taking care of plants can get expensive and time-consuming. My ivy died by the time I learned how to take care of it. Gromeo was primarily created by the thinkers at Habitat Horticulture in order to make the benefits of home gardening accessible to anyone without the constant work that comes with maintaining the plant’s health. Similar to other home gardening systems, Gromeo integrates a base reservoir filled with one gallon of water and uses Growtex’s water-efficient wicking technology for plants to absorb water through capillary action, keeping them hydrated for up to three weeks. Without any plumbing or electrical work needed, Gromeo allows users to pick a wall system based on their living space’s particular light availability. Through a palette-devised key, users can choose between garden wall systems that need anywhere between minimal to constant sunlight. The low-light wall systems typically include lots of leafy greens like fern and palm leaves and the high-light wall systems offer pods filled with cactus and grass. Constructed entirely from maple wood, recycled and sustainable material, Gromeo caters to the environmentalist in each of us. The hanging wall system waters the plants on a daily basis, all that’s required of its user is refilling the reservoir located in the product’s base every two weeks.

Gromeo comes fully planted with the plants ideal for your living space and outfitted with mounting hardware and drywall anchors for easy application. A lot of self-sustaining home gardens today lose their appeal through wasteful construction and loud tech gimmicks, which result in little knowledge gained for users who are actually concerned with taking care of their plants. Gromeo seems to offer a compromise. From the chic and sustainably-sourced materials that make up the structure to the thoughtful approach taken in regard to the customization of each wall system according to a plant’s needs, Gromeo brings the fruits of gardening to even those of us who might not have known we had it in us to take care of a plant, let alone a whole garden.

Designer: Habitat Horticulture