Upgrade Your Garden Hose To Make Watering Easier And Faster
Do you have a mis-behaving garden hose? Struggling each time to handle it? You need a garden hose to keep plants watered, so make sure you have a good one.
Do you have a garden hose that just refuses to relax, is constantly tense (hmm, sounds like some people I know!) and doesn’t cooperate when you are putting it away after it’s served its watering duties? No matter what you do it continues to flail about in unruly coils, gets kinked, stops the flow of water and leaks in various places.
This wastes time, can cause you to be stressed out and can actually damage plants as you try to pull the hose through the yard.
Wouldn’t it make your gardening easier if your garden hose would just behave!
The tip here is to purchase the right garden hose and banish that old hose to soaker hose duty or other uses. And use the right hose hanger, hose end nozzle and maintain the hose so it gives you many years of use.
Why You Need A Garden Hose
I have an in-ground sprinkler system that has a timer. However I use my garden hoses for the following tasks:
- watering my containers – while I prefer to use water from my rain barrels I usually run out of water in mid summer as we get very little rain in July and August. And watering by hand with a watering can takes a long time so the hose is quicker.
- rinsing off garden tools and my wheelbarrow – while I have a sink in my greenhouse, some garden tools are too bulky and easier to clean outside with the hose.
- pressure washer – it needs a good steady supply of water, so the hose has to deliver a high volume of water.
- washing the car.
- rinsing off wood after cleaning – I need to periodically clean off accumulated dirt and mildew off my wood deck railings and greenhouse with oxygenated bleach and need to use the hose to rinse off the bleach solution.
- filling the water barrels – I do manually fill up some water barrels that I use for drip irrigating plants such as my raspberries in the hottest months of the summer we don’t get any rain.
- sprinkler – while I have an in-ground sprinkler system, occasionally I might need to water something separately without having everything else in that sprinkler zone turned on. So being able to setup a manual sprinkler is handy.
The Best Quality Garden Hose
The hose that I recommend and has served me well for the years I have owned it, is the Flexilla hose.
It is made of a strong polymer blend, is very flexible (hence the name Flexilla), is relatively lightweight and is quite visible. Very easy to coil up and doesn’t fight you, to make watering easier.
There are three convenient lengths depending on what you need to reach all corners of your garden. I have two of the 50′ hoses and my mother has a 100′.
I regret I didn’t buy a 75′ hose for the backyard as the 50′ hose barely reaches to my compost. With a longer hose you can weave it around your flower beds instead of through them. So measure carefully and buy the right size to begin with.
While you can buy these hoses locally at a big box store, nursery or home centre, sometimes Amazon has specials on these moderately expensive hoses, so it pays to check first. I’ve provided three links depending on what length you need. So click the links below first to check the price and compare with prices you might find locally.
Get a decent hose hanger that won’t damage your hose
We are used to the stamped steel hangers of old because they were cheap and available everywhere. There are a few issues with these:
- sharp edges that can cut into your hose
- not large enough to hold a decent size hose
- loops not easy to remove
When I bought my first Flexilla hose I also bought an easy to use rack. Check out the Amazon link below since not all local retailers will carry this and you can save some time looking around.
