Lack of rain leads to plenty of watering device frustration

If you weren’t frustrated with watering tools before, you probably are now. If you garden in Ozaukee County, or anywhere in the majority of the Midwest, your main gardening job for the past few weeks has been dragging hoses, sprinklers and watering wands to and fro to make up for the rain that’s not falling from the sky.

During droughts in England they have “hosepipe” bans, so you can still water your garden but you can’t use a hose to do it, a mark of just how useful hoses are. I wouldn’t want to live without a hose, but I still contend they are the single most frustrating piece of gardening equipment. They crush plants as they are dragged around, never quite reach where you need them to and they kink. Oh, do they kink.

Oh sure, you can buy a hose that is guaranteed not to kink, but invariably it has some other issue that makes you miss a good-old fashioned kink in a hose. I once bought “The Perfect Garden Hose,” which was literally the name of it and it was guaranteed not to kink. And it didn’t, but it was also impossible to coil. Any attempt at reining it into some semblance of order was rewarded with what I call the Slinky effect, in which it would spring to life, splaying itself out across the garden and usually around your ankles.

After one such springing event it was tossed into the back of the car for delivery to the dump and on the way there it sprang to life, upending that week’s recyclables and giving the driver a scare.

I started using retractable hose reels last year, and so far I’d say they are the best thing that ever happened in my garden. But it’s only been a year, and I know that all watering devices are inevitably disappointments, it just depends how long it takes to get there.

Because I now spend my free time coordinating two sprinklers running at all times when I’m around to tend them, swapping out different sprinkler styles, hose wands and extra lengths of hose, I have a large collection of quick connect valves. In fact, I have four large connections because in each of the last four years I’ve found a system I like better than the one before and I changed over to all new quick connects.

The manufacturers of these products have a fabulous business concept: Make a device that works incredibly well for just long enough to convince customers to buy into the system. Meanwhile, gardeners can count their lucky stars if they still like them at the end of summer.

Watering wands always leak, and new O-rings will stop that. And don’t get me started on sprinklers. My only advice is to not bother spending a lot of money on them because the expensive ones are just as bad as the cheap ones.

Ironically one of the best performing watering devices I have is my rain barrel. Now if Mother Nature would just fill it.