Do You Know Someone Who Could Use a Garden Hose Gift?

A garden hose is generally one of the last things to come to mind when it’s time to buy gifts, but the right garden hose could be the perfect present under some circumstances. Can’t think of a single time when a garden hose would be an appropriate gift? Here are a few times that the right hose for the garden or home just might be the most thoughtful gift you could give.

Housewarming Gift

A high-quality garden hose is one of the most used and useful tools in any homeowners’ garage or tool shed, but many new homeowners don’t think about that hose until the first time they need it. A 1/2 inch garden hose won’t be the most glamorous gift the new homeowner receives, but it will probably be the most useful. Make it even more useful by including a selection of garden hose accessories to go along with the hose. You might include a variable spray nozzle, or a Y-connector that allows you to attach two garden hoses to one outdoor faucet, or look through the selection of garden hose reels to find one that will look great in the new yard.

Wedding or Shower Gift

Again, a garden hose is not the most glamorous gift the happy couple will receive, but it’s definitely a wedding gift that will help them in setting up their new household. Most folks think about the interior when choosing wedding gifts. The bride- and groom-to-be will probably get all the kitchen accessories and appliances they’ll need – including duplicates. There will be towel sets and duvet covers and china and glassware and flatware. Unless they’ve asked specifically, though, it’s not likely that many wedding guests will think of giving them gifts relating to the outside of the home. Trust me. The first time they go to wash the car, water the garden or hose off the driveway, they’ll appreciate your gift of an appropriate garden hose enormously.

New Apartment Gift

You don’t have to own a new home to appreciate a garden hose. People who live in apartments need to wash their cars and hose off their patios, and many garden on the patio or a yard. Acoil garden hose is an excellent choice for apartment dwellers who garden in tight spaces. If they don’t have access to an outdoor faucet, consider including an adapter that will allow them to attach the garden hose to the kitchen or bathroom faucet.

A garden hose may not seem like much of a gift, but there are definitely situations when it’s a gift that will be greatly appreciated and see a lot of use.

Four Reasons to Hate Your Old Garden Hose

Most serious gardeners – and a lot of homeowners who don’t garden – have a love-hate relationship with their garden hose – and there’s not a lot of love in that equation. Despite the fact that the garden hose is the single piece of gardening equipment that most gardeners use every single day during the gardening season, a lot of folks don’t put a lot of thought into buying the right one – and once they’ve bought one (usually the cheapest one they can find that meets their minimum requirements), they often don’t realize just how much of their time and energy they spend dealing with a recalcitrant, balky or downright surly garden hose. Is it time to replace your old hose with a shiny, new one that will do what you want it to – without getting all kinky and spitting water at you? Here are four reasons to hate your old garden hose enough to replace it with one that will do the job so much better.

It Doesn’t Reach Where You Want It to Go

Okay, admit it. You’ve done this: you stretch the hose as far as you can – usually going back to unkink it when it decides to get curled up on itself – turn the water as high as possible and aim the water for the one corner of the garden where you garden hose doesn’t quite reach.  Among other things, that kind of stretching isn’t good for your garden hose – it puts stress on the garden hose fittings and makes it more likely that it will separate from the tubing. More importantly, it makes it a whole lot harder to water the whole garden effectively.

It’s Got Splits and Leaks Here, There and Everywhere

Cheap hoses split and break with alarming regularity. Most commonly, they leak around the faucet, where they don’t attach properly. Better quality hoses are made from materials that resist splitting and separating from the garden hose fittings, so you don’t end up patching them with adhesive tape.

The Nozzle End Is Deformed and Misshapen

Speaking of garden hose fittings, cheap hoses often have fittings made of tin or other soft metal that bends and deforms with the slightest pressure. You never have to worry about your hose fitting your faucet when you invest in a good quality garden hose with solid brass or high quality plastic fittings.

It Could Be Poisoning You

You knew your garden hose was out to get you, but you probably didn’t realize that it’s trying to poison you. A number of consumer watchdog groups have tested the water that comes out of typical cheap hoses and found alarming amounts of lead and other chemicals. The solution is a drinking safe garden hose if you drink from your hose or fill kiddie pools with it.

Why put up with a gardening tool you hate when you can eliminate the problems and make your gardening much easier with a new garden hose?

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.