Shipping and carrying container for pots

Claim 1

In a shipping and carrying container for potted plants made of sheet plastic having a thickness of about 0.040 inch or less, the combination comprising: a plurality of rigid pots, such having a sidewall of inverted frusto-conical shape; a flat having a bottom and only four generally flat, upright peripheral sidewalls, each terminating in an upper peripheral edge and being slightly outwardly inclined from the vertical, all of said upper edges lying in a common plane; and a spacer plate comprising a flat sheet of plastic defining a plurality of apertures for slidably receiving said pots, each aperture being sized to snugly engage a pot received therein, said apertures being further sized and arranged such that pots received therein engage all four sidewalls of the flat and a plurality of pots engage and partially rest on the bottom of said flat while maintaining snug peripheral engagement with the edge of their associated spacer apertures to thereby fix the spacer plate and the pots relative to said flat, said spacer plate being dimensioned to extend beyond and rest on the upper peripheral edges of said sidewalls of said flat and to partially transmit the weight of pots received therein to said sidewalls of said flat when said flat is distorted to maintain said upper edges of said sidewall of said flat in said common plane; the inclination of said sidewalls of said flat being approximately the same as the inclination of the sidewall portions of said pots which engage them to provide an extended upright engagement location between the outer surface of said pot sidewall portions and the inner surface of said sidewalls of said flat.