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Jun 02, 2023

How to choose the perfect hose for your garden this summer

With wall hoses, look for a 180-swivel mechanism' Gardena manual roll-up models from €125 for 15m, with 25m automatic returns from 220, multiple suppliers. Invented 2,500 years ago by the Greeks using

With wall hoses, look for a 180-swivel mechanism' Gardena manual roll-up models from €125 for 15m, with 25m automatic returns from 220, multiple suppliers.

Invented 2,500 years ago by the Greeks using animal guts, and perfected in the 1600s by the industrious Dutch flower growers for commercial sale, we still use our garden hoses for dozens of jobs around the garden and yard.

A well-detailed, quality hose should save you work, water and plant losses year-round. You might be watering flower baskets, feeding the power washer, mixing up a little concrete or cleaning down the windows with a light misting.

Go with the flow with our guide to tempering your irrigation to work with, not against, any water restrictions, and put it away once you know there’s a firm hose ban.

Durability

Hoses are made from a variety of pliable materials including nylon, polyurethane, polyethene, PVC, or synthetic or natural rubbers. Rubber spells quality, but synthetics with UV resistance are blessedly light. Most hoses are hybrid creatures.

Kinking is a nerve-shredding nuisance standard with a cheap thin-walled hose likely to eventually tear when crushed with a booted foot or barrow. In PVC, look for a reinforced, high-pressure resistant model of around 22 bar for light use and up to 30 bar for medium to heavy use.

Hoses exploding off the connector is a comedic but annoying moment when you’re already baked into your shorts. Garden hoses have easy gliding, budget-minded Comfort HiFlex models, with what they term a Power Grip Profile to secure the connection between hose and hose connector up to 25 bar. The hose is a PVC spiral-mesh textile with a 20-year guarantee. €60 for 30m.

Their CleverRoll carts start at €50 to carry up to 40m. Hozelock’s equivalent of a good anti-kink, anti-crush hose is the Ultimate which you can find for around the same price. Its spray guns start at just €20 without a hose bundle.

Size matters

To get the length right, measure up to your furthest bed and add a few metres for comfort. The 10m-50m domestic hoses are available with diameters matched to Imperial connector sizes in three-quarter inch or half-inch or quarter-inch. It’s useful to have a generous collection of connectors compatible with your system to set up extra lengths of hose, branch the line, and serve sprinklers, nozzles, and other accessories.

A three-quarter inch (19mm) pipe will obviously carry more water and well reinforced can deal with good pressure without kinking, delivering two-and-a-half times more water than the standard half-inch (13mm) version. Be frugal when you can.

With a reducer, it can be taken back to a half inch to snap on your accessories at the hose’s end. For a small garden or city terrace, I would suggest the new Hozelock Micro Reel, which offers 10m of hose (enough to reach the car and container planting) and a simple rotating drum you can hang up on the wall out of the way; €25, multiple suppliers.

The new Flopro Watering Can Reel, is a nifty 10m portable hose reel. Styled as a watering can, it can be attached directly to your hose and offers various water delivery patterns, great for city balconies and hanging baskets; €45.

Flopro also offers expandable hose sets that double in size from 15m to 30m if you’re in an urban pinch, https://www.arboretum.ie/">arboretum.ie.

Irrigation systems

A weeping hose or soaker is porous and slowly weeps water along its surface. It can be connected to cover large areas of the garden using branches and "T" and elbow connectors to ensure no back-up in the water flow. The end is plugged in to eliminate wastage.

The lengths of the hose need to be carefully sited and staked down to both hide it and prevent the hose from drifting. Discreetly coloured black hosing is ideal for this project. A typical buy that you don’t have to permanently dig in, would be the Gardena Soaker Hose used for bedding and hedging at €35 for 15m (suppliers include Woodies DIY).

If you’re using your hose to irrigate the garden, check that the hose flow rate, measured in litres per minute, is sufficient for the job. If you want to use your water barrel regularly to water plants in a larger garden, investigate a dedicated, submersible pump and choose a hose that neatly detaches from any tap position to do this double duty. The butt must, of course, have a hose connector to put this system in play.

Lidl offers 1.3-bar/400W models seasonally for just €44.99, https://www.lidl.ie/">lidl.ie. For something with app-based smarts look into the Gardena Smart systems, gardena.com.

A good return

An internal rewinding mechanism costs more, but if you’re dragging the hose out a lot during the season, well worth consideration. Look for an anti-friction surface, “self-layering” for smooth action and a ‘blocking’ mechanism to prevent it from whipping back to the garage if you accidentally drop it. A 180-degree bracket on the reel housing will keep the hose running straight.

I’m currently eying up the 20m Karcher Automatic Hose Reel (20m) which comes in at around €141 depending on suppliers (hoses are fertile ground for sales offers). Look out for wall-mounted varieties from Titan, Sealy, Hozelock, Vevor and other good brands that include two hose connectors and extra storage detailing like accessory holders for spray lance or sprayers while connected to the hose (Karcher again).

The 180-degree multi-directional brackets make watering different aspects of the garden easier, as there is less tugging the hose casing against the hose itself. A recoil or curly hose of 10m-30m is ideal for smaller gardens, terraces, and balconies, as it simply pulls out like a spring and returns for neat storage. 15m for around €30 with multiple brands to fit universal accessories.

A ground-standing reel is useful for a garden with multiple water outlets. In automatics and manual reels, look for a horse-style cart with handle and wheels to shift it. Hozelock-assembled pro-carts with 30m of hose are priced from €80.

Trigger finger

Avoid using your hose without some form of control at the outlet. Spray guns, nozzles and lances have adjustable spray patterns including jet, mist, and soft-spray and form a vital arsenal for accurate application for containers, baskets and plants placed at the back of beds.

Pests can be blasted off leaves and flowers without the use of chemicals using a dedicated water wand. Look out for a good "pulse" trigger mechanism, variable reach (up to 1.5m with telescopic action), palm-friendly hold and “fast-fill” to top up your watering cans. Metal components, including connectors and handles, will increase the price but stand the course better than pure plastic.

Hozelock’s clever Aquastop connector automatically shuts off the hose supply when the fitting is uncoupled so there is no need to return to the tap when you want to change the head of the hose.

A complete, quality hose kit is ideal if you’re buying your first hose as it gives you everything you need in one pack, making it highly cost-effective. Don’t do without a reel if you can possibly afford it. You’ll trip over the blasted thing in the end.

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