Hi. Posting from Scotland. My background is in polymer technology and specifically developing hydrogels for medical, controlled release, biomaterials and sensor applications. My hobby is cooking and growing fresh kitchen herbs which I used to water to a fairly strict regime - although sometimes from above and sometimes from below. My plants did ok for awhile but usually then suffered from overwatering.
I decided that I should be able to control the flow of water to plants using my hydrogels in membrane form. After a few prototypes my invention worked spectacularly well with basil, achieving plants 2ft - 3ft in height! I extended it to using common houseplants like begonia, chrysanthemum, poinsettia, orchids, streptocarpus, hedera, areca, peace lily, gerbora, bromeliad and african violets with similar success.

My Osmogro invention uses osmosis whereby water diffuses from a reservoir through a hydrogel membrane into a plant container. When the water reaches the soil it dissolves nutrients and salts within the soil to form a solution which in turn creates an osmotic potential across the membrane. This causes more water to be drawn through to balance the relative concentrations either side of the membrane. At the same time the plant is drawing water and nutrients from the soil and "soil solution" through its root system. In effect the plant is controlling the rate of transport of water from the reservoir through the hydrogel membrane. The worry is taken away about how much? and when? to water as all that needs to be done is to maintain water in the reservoir. The plant then maintains the equilibrium. I've gone from keeping only a few plants, mostly herbs, to having lots of plants around my home. I have an african violet that has flowered 10 consecutive times in 4.5 years. I monitor when I fill the reservoir and can now predict when it is about to flower as there is an increase in water uptake. It is amazing how little water the plant uses, especially as it is now about 12 inches in diameter. I think this has been achieved by removing the lottery of feast and famine watering, whether from above or below. Chris