Give Mom a Summer of Fun Gardening with a Garden Hose for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is coming up fast. Have you decided on a gift for mom yet? Before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way. Mothers do not hate practical Mother’s Day gifts. In fact, mothers love gifts that show you appreciate the things she loves to do and see how hard she works. So what do you get for the mom who loves gardening and working around the outside of the house? How about replacing that worn-out old garden hose she’s been lugging around the yard and driveway for years?

Oh, I know. You’re thinking, “A garden hose? For Mother’s Day? Are you kidding?”   Not at all. Here’s why a new garden hose makes a great Mother’s Day gift for a mom who loves to spend time in the garden.

The Right Garden Hose Makes Gardening Easier

Unless you’re the one doing the yard work, you don’t realize how much time gardeners spend wrestling with a balky hose that insists on kinking up – usually all the way across the yard from where you’re standing. Aside from that, older garden hoses can be bulky and unwieldy, wrapping themselves around patio furniture and getting caught on garden edging. And if she works in a small space, a coil garden hose practically stores itself, saving her a ton of time every time she waters her plants. Don’t you think mom would rather spend that time doing the more fun part of gardening?

A Bigger Garden Hose Gets the Watering Done Faster

No, not a longer hose – a fatter one. In fact, a 3/4 inch garden hose delivers water to the plants twice as fast as a 1/2 inch garden hose. And because you get stronger, steadier water pressure, mom can take advantage of the variety of garden hose nozzles on the market for specialty uses like misting. Again, mom can certainly find better ways to use her time if she can get the garden watered in half the time, right?

She’d Never Think to Buy One for Herself.

Well, if it sprang a leak, she might, but chances are she’d just patch up the old thing and keep right on using it. It can be hard to justify replacing a trusty old tool when it still does the job, especially if the only one it inconveniences is mom. So, rather than spending the money to buy a high-quality, durable garden hose, she’ll keep wrestling with it and dragging it around, making more work for herself.

A new garden hose may not have the bling factor of a pretty birthstone ring – you know, with all the kids’ birthstones – but you know she’ll never take it off and lose it in the flower bed, right? Mom probably won’t ask for a new garden hose for Mother’s Day, but you can bet she’ll appreciate it every single day of the growing season.

Garden Hose Tips to Make Your Chores Easier This Season

Why work harder than you have to? When the temperatures spike into the red, the last thing you want to be doing is dragging a heavy garden hose from one end of your property to another. If you take the time to get the right garden hose and garden hose accessories, you won’t have to. In fact, the right garden hose selections could make your whole summer a lot easier. Check out these tips from an experienced gardener to find out how choosing the right hose and using it efficiently can help you get your chores done more quickly so you can enjoy your garden more and work in it less.

Multiple Hoses on One Faucet

Do you need to take your hose in multiple directions? If your gardening chores take you from the front yard to the back yard and around the side of the house to the driveway, consider using more than one hose. A multi-faucet manifold lets you hook up more than one garden hose to your outdoor faucet at the same time, so you can hook up the 50-foot 3/4 inch garden hose for watering the garden and the 25-foot 1/2 inch garden hose for watering the front lawn without having to swap them out each time – and without having to push your water through an extra 50 feet to get it where you want it to go.

One caveat: if you use more than one hose at a time, you’ll be splitting the water pressure among them. In most cases, you won’t be using them all at once, though – it’s just handy to have the best kind of garden hose for each task without having to spend half your morning unscrewing the hose from the faucet.

Start with a High Quality Hose

Most gardeners would be surprised if they added up all the time they spend wrestling with a garden hose. Cheap garden hoses are more likely to kink, crimp and knot. They’re also more likely to split and leak. The cheap garden hose that seemed like such a great deal in the aisle of the home improvement store could end up costing you a lot more over time. A high quality garden hose is more resistant to kinking, won’t knot and will last years longer than a cheap department store hose.

Pick the Garden Hose You Need

There are all sorts of specialty garden hose choices on the market. Among the most useful and universal – a drinking safe garden hose. You won’t have to worry about lead or chemicals in your kids’ swimming pool or your fresh salad.

Do You Suffer from Garden Hose Frustration?

Garden hose frustration – it’s a malady known to any gardener or home handyperson who has had to wrestle with a recalcitrant garden hose. If you’ve ever fought a heavy hose, dragged it over and around your yard, cursed it when it insinuated itself around your ankles – or worse, under the blades of your lawnmower – you know exactly what I mean. It’s also a malady with a sure cure – the right garden hose will cure you of it for years to come. Finding the best garden hose, however, can be a little trickier. Here’s what you should know when choosing a new garden hose.

Polyurethane – The Best Material for Your Garden Hose

In past years, the cheapest garden hoses were made – are still made, really – of PVC. It’s heavy, and it leaches chemicals into water that sits in the hose for any length of time. That can be a major concern if you drink from the water hose in your garden – and before you say you’d never do that, think again. Do you fill children’s swimming pools from the garden hose? How much of that water do you think your kids’ are swallowing? Do you water your vegetable garden with your garden hose? That water is leaving chemicals and other contaminants, including lead, on your tomatoes and green beans  -- and while that can be washed off, it’s not as easy to wash lead and other contaminants out of your garden soil, where it gets taken up by the good you’re growing.

So what’s the solution? Check out the newest lines of polyurethane garden hoses. Polyurethane is lightweight and pliable. It doesn’t require the chemicals and heavy leads used to cure PVC, thus there are no chemicals to leach into your drinking water. It doesn’t kink easily, making it far easier to maneuver around your yard. The biggest drawback of a polyurethane garden hose is that it’s usually more expensive than a cheap PVC hose. Even there, though, you’ll usually come out ahead. Because polyurethane doesn’t bake or freeze and is impervious to the UV rays of the sun, a polyurethane garden hose will last you for years longer than a standard PVC hose. When you factor in the multiple replacements you’d need to last as long as a PVC drinking safe garden hose, you’ll find that a polyurethane garden hose is a bargain.

This year, say goodbye to garden hose frustration. Shop online to find the right garden hose for your needs and live in harmony with the hose.

Surprising Things You Can Do with Your Garden Hose

Everyone knows that when you want to water your garden or wash your car, your trusty garden hose is the first tool you pull out of the shed. Watering and washing are only two of the many things you can use your garden hose to do, though. Do you know you can use your garden hose to help you lay out a walkway? Or that your worn-out garden hose can make it easier to carry a heavy bucket from one part of the yard to another? Here’s a list of surprising things you may not have known you could do with your garden hose.

Lay Out a Curving Path

Whether you’re laying out a walkway or designing the curving edge of a flower bed, your garden hose is one of the best tools at your disposal. A good 1/2 inch garden hose is flexible enough to curve where you want it, and heavy enough to stay put when you lay it down. You can even leave it in place while you dig along the curve to make sure that you get the outline you want.

Pad a Bucket Handle

Are you replacing your worn garden hose? Cut a few lengths of hose to use for other projects. If you have a metal bucket with a wire handle, for example, a length of garden hose makes a great padded cover for the wire. Just make a slit along one side of the hose and slide the tubing over the handle with the slit facing up. The vinyl hose will keep the metal handle from cutting into your hand when you’re carrying it.

Empty Your Hot Tub

You don’t need a pump or siphon to empty the water out of your swimming pool or hot tub. All you need is a short length of garden hose. Drop one end of the hose into the water. Suck through the hose until you have water flowing, then leave the other end of the hose hanging lower than the hose inside the pool. The water will continue to drain on its own.

Clear a Clogged Drain

Water pressure is one of the quickest ways to clear a clogged drain. Connect your garden hose to an outdoor spigot and drag it through the house to the drain that needs clearing. Push the end of the hose into the drain, and wrap a towel tightly around it. Have a helper turn on the hose outside so that you can keep an eye on the drain. Within a few minutes, the running water should clear the clog from the drain.

Your garden hose is good for a lot more than watering your flowers and washing down your house. If you’re looking for a replacement for your old hose, look for one that fits all of your needs. These days, there are all sorts of specialty hoses for different purposes, including coil garden hose, drinking safe garden hose and heated garden hose. Consider your needs and then choose the one that meets them best.

What Features Are Important to You in a Garden Hose?

When you’re shopping for a new garden hose, what features do you look for? While many people may think that a garden hose is just a garden hose, gardeners understand the finer points. In addition to the standard 1/2 inch garden hose and 3/4 inch garden hose and one inch water hose, there is a wide range of garden hose options available. They come in standard and custom lengths and diameters, differing levels of quality and have many features that are each designed to suit them for a particular purpose. These are some of the most popular garden hose features you may find when you go looking to replace your worn-out water hose or garden hose.

Drinking Safe Garden Hose

Many older garden hoses – and a healthy percentage of new ones – are made of materials that leach toxic chemicals into any water left standing in them. A drinking safe garden hose must use no lead in the garden hose fittings or to treat the interior of the garden hose. Some states, such as California, require that garden hoses carry labels that identify any unsafe chemicals they contain. In many other states, garden hose manufacturers label drinking safe garden hoses because they’ve learned that consumers prefer them.

Coil Garden Hose

If you hate coiling up your garden hose or reeling it in, a coil garden hose may be exactly what you want. Rather than unrolling to lay flat on the ground like a standard garden hose, a coil garden hose is shaped like a large spring. You can stretch it to three or more times its length, and when you release the hose, it springs back to its original shape. Coiled garden hoses eliminate most kinking problems and are much easier to store than standard hoses, which usually require garden hose reels to keep hoses coiled neatly off the ground and out of the way.

Heated Water Hose

Anyone who has to do watering chores outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures understands the importance of a heated garden hose. These always have a heater at the end of the hose that attaches to the spigot, and some have heating wires running along the entire length of the hose. The intent is to keep water from freezing in the garden hose, increasing the risk of damaging or cracking the vinyl or rubber. You must have a GCFI electrical outlet installed where you can plug the heated hose into a power source safely.

These are just a few of the many garden hose features you’ll find when you’re looking for a replacement for your old, trusty watering tool. Before you shop, think carefully about the features you’d like to have in your water hose, and choose one that will meet all your needs.

A Crash Course in Finding the Best Garden Hose

If you’ve ever had to fight a garden hose that insists on tangling, kinking and catching on the edge of patio furniture, you understand the importance of buying the best garden hose for your needs. The right materials, length, diameter and special features can make your garden hose an ally in your gardening chores. But how do you choose the right garden hose when there are so many choices and options available? Here’s a crash course in choosing the right garden hose.

Options to Choose From

Garden hoses come in many different sizes. The most common are 25, 50, 75 and 100-foot lengths in a variety of diameters. A low-cost 1/2 inch garden hose will deliver about 9 gallons of water per minute. A 3/4 inch garden hose will deliver up to 23 gallons per minute if you have good water pressure. Keep in mind that your garden hose will lose water pressure over distance, but wider diameters will lose less water pressure. If you need a long garden hose, have low water pressure or if your garden hose will be running uphill, get a larger diameter hose to compensate for the lower water pressure.

A quality garden hose will be made of rubber, vinyl or a combination of rubber or vinyl. The best garden hose options are reinforced, which lets them bend without kinking and provides more strength and durability and a longer lifespan. You’ll also want a garden hose with solid brass garden hose fittings and couplings.

Expect to pay for quality – a decent quality 50-foot garden hose will cost you about $30. Specialty garden hoses, like a coil garden hose or a drinking safe garden hose, will cost more, but they’ll last you for years.

Specialty Garden Hoses

Safety is a major concern and garden hoses are no different. Be aware that many garden hoses aren’t suitable if the water that goes through it will be used for drinking or human contact. A lot of the hoses on the market are made with recycled materials that contain known carcinogens, and many promote the growth of bacteria and mold that can be picked up by the water passing through them. If you’re going to use your garden hose to fill a swimming pool for your little ones or if your kids will be running through the filter, consider investing in a drinking safe garden hose.

Finally, if you’re going to invest in buying the best garden hose, don’t leave it unprotected. Pick up a good garden hose reel or other storage solution that will help prolong its life and keep it clean and kink-free.

Neat Tricks with New Garden Hoses

Worn out garden hoses and cheap garden hoses are the sources of more problems than most people realize. These are just a few of the issues you can resolve when you replace your old, worn-out garden hose with a new one that meets your needs.

Leaks at the Faucet

The biggest cause of water spraying and dribbling at the faucet connection is a poorly fitting garden hose fitting. The best garden hoses are made with solid brass garden hose fittings that won’t warp or bend when you accidentally step on them (of course, if you’re constantly stepping on your garden hose, you might look at the selection of garden hose reels available at a good garden supply site online). Garden hose fittings made with cheap metal alloys may not hold the thread pattern or may wear over time, so that your garden hose doesn’t connect right to the faucet. The end result is a lot of wasted water and a fair amount of frustration.

Kinky Hose

There are times when a little kinky might be good – but not when it the kink is in your garden hose while you’re trying to water the lawn. Cheap plastic and vinyl garden hoses are much more likely to fold, bend and kink when you’re trying to pull them straighter. Even worse, those kinks are far more likely to become permanent. If you’re trying to do your gardening and household tasks with a kinky garden hose, trade it in and invest in a new hose. The selection of garden hoses available these days includes coil garden hoses that store in very little space – and never kink – and reinforced garden hoses that resist kinks.

Split Hoses

Once a garden hose has kinked, it’s much more likely to spring a leak or worse, to just completely split. While you can repair it with duct tape – over and over again – it makes far more sense to replace it with one of the new top quality 1/2 inch garden hoses or 3/4 inch garden hoses that will withstand rough handling without splitting on you when you need them most.

Low Water Pressure

While garden hoses can’t solve all of your low water pressure problems, the diameter and length of your hose have a direct effect on the power of the water coming out of the business end of your nozzle. Every extra foot that water has to travel to get there reduces the amount of water pressure. If you’re using a hose that’s longer than you need to reach where you need to put the water, consider buying a shorter garden hose. Experts will tell you that if you sometimes need a longer hose, it’s better to buy two shorter garden hoses – one to use most of the time and a second one to extend its reach when you need it.

Garden hoses may not be on the top of your list of fun gardening accessories, but the right garden hose can make your gardening a lot more fun to do.