' ' ' ' Watering ' ' ' '

So we need to water our gardens. The question is, how best to deliver the water? There is the old standby, the oscillating or rotating lawn sprinkler. Besides being horribly inconsistent in coverage, these simply deliver water too fast, in drops too large for our flowers, and can do a lot of damage. Nothing looks more pitiful than a once-proud peony that has been hit with a sprinkler.

Overhead watering is not the way to go - we have trouble enough with mildew, rust, leaf curl and other afflictions that are water-spread or thrive in damp conditions on foliage. Unless you have a very small garden, you just can't keep up with hand watering. Pipe-and-emitter drip systems are terrific for the pots and planters on the deck, but a whole-garden system would take more time and attention to set up than I want to devote.

Our solution is to install rubber weeper (soaker) hoses. These are made from recycled tires, and are porous, allowing water to ooze through the walls of the hose. They are laid on the ground around the base of the plants, and drip water directly onto the soil. (Note: we are not talking about the flat sprinkler hoses that are intended to spray water from holes along their length, but really spend all their time twisting upside down and coiling into unusable pretzels. The less said about these, the better).

Weeper hoses are a low-tech alternative to proper drip systems. They aren't as accurate, because water comes out along the whole length of the hose rather than at specific points - so they use more water than drip systems. But they are far more efficient than overhead watering, and more forgiving of varying water pressure than drip systems.

There are two ways to install weeper hoses, on the surface or buried. A surface hose will spread water a bit wider than a buried one, because when you turn the pressure up, you get some fine sprays at random points along the hose. This does have the disadvantage of wetting the lower foliage. A surface hose is a bit unsightly, and you may need to pin it down with some small wire hoops to hold it in place.

What we do is to bury the hose very shallowly in the soil. Before you add your mulch on your beds, snake the hose between the plants, and use your finger to carve out an inch-deep furrow in the soil along the path of the hose. Then nestle the hose in the furrow and put on your normal compost mulch or other mulch over top. * If you can't dig your soil 1" deep with one finger, or if you are not using a mulch, click here right away!

Then, just use regular hose fittings to hook up to a garden hose or directly to a tap with a shut-off "Y" connector. I use the quick-connect Gardena hose ends (or their compatible competitors) so I can move the supply hose between various beds easily.

When you lay the hose, remember that length equals amount of water delivered, so loop the hose around your major shrubs and trees so that their root zones get exposed to more length of hose and therefore more water. Get your hoses installed early in the season - it's much more difficult working the hose into place when your plants are in full bloom and mature growth.

What to watch for with Weepers:

First and most obvious is to check for leaks at the beginning of the season and periodically thereafter. Leaks are almost always caused by shovels in the hands of spouses : - ) . I check my hoses with my ears: a properly functioning weeper hose will make a discreet hiss down its whole length, whereas a hose with a leak will be quiet except for a gushing sound at the break. I use electrical tape or duct tape to bind the leaky area - 3 layers minimum - I suppose it won't last forever, but it's quick and easy. A leak near the end of a hose can be dealt with by cutting and tying off the open end. (Note: I don't bury the hose very deep, so the auditory method works. The alternative with a buried hose is to leave the hose running for a while, then sample the dampness of the soil to see if it is consistent along the length.)

Timing:

Weepers are a low pressure system, which means they deliver water consistently at a slow rate. To properly soak the root zone, you need to leave the weeper on for much longer than a normal sprinkler. I suggest six or more hours - longer if you have a system of 75 feet or more. I will leave a weeper system going at low pressure all one day or all one night. For the forgetful: the impact of leaving a weeper hose on is much less severe than leaving a sprinkler on!

The watering zone:

A weeper delivers water to an area of up to 6 inches either side of the hose. This means that you must run the hose immediately adjacent to your plants. It also means that you need to monitor a new installation for a while to see that every plant is getting covered. You can have one plant thriving while another just 8" away dies of drought, so make sure that you know where the water is going.

A hidden benefit of this characteristic is that you won't be delivering water to the weeds outside of the watering zone, which cuts down on your weeding. It's even more effective when you are using a mulch as well - the top surface of the mulch never gets watered, so germinating weed seeds have a much tougher go of it.

Clogging:

I have never had a hose clog, but I also don't put any fertilizers into the water. I would suggest you do the same - deliver your fertilizers by hand and let the weeper deliver fresh water only.

Flow restrictors:

You'll see a washer with a very small hole in the female connector of the hose. This is the flow restrictor, which keeps the pressure down. If you are daisy-chaining weeper hoses together, keep the first flow restrictor in place, but remove them from the connectors in the middle of the chain.

Effects on wildlife:

If you use the surface hose method, you know where all the slugs in your garden will be found! They love the damp just under the weeper. Makes for easy slug pickin' in the morning.

I don't know why, but our cat never learns: inevitably she'll be sleeping soundly, tucked into a hidden corner of a flower bed when I turn on the weepers. She takes great offense at the hissing, and backs out of the bed with her back arched and tail like a bottle brush.
Ah well, you can't please everyone...

Generally inexpensive.

Portable.

Best suited to round or rectangular areas of lawn or meadow.

Hard to get consistent coverage.

Drops are too heavy for most flowers and can cause damage.

Sprinkling open soil packs it down and forms a crust - which is very bad for germinating seeds.

Provides too inviting of a habitat for fungus if the foliage is frequently damp.

With the wide range of sprinkler heads & flow rates, capable of being set up with much more precision than regular sprinklers.

Can cover irregular and hard to reach areas

Not easy to move when your planting layout changes.

Same problem as overhead sprinklers re: dampness on foliage and evaporation.

The most efficient system in terms of minimum wasted water.

Good for greenhouses, large permanent beds or installations of hanging baskets that would otherwise be difficult to water.

Also good for pots on decks and balconies

Hints :
Spend a little more money on emitters that have built-in stakes to anchor them in the pot or in the ground - cheap plastic stakes that clip onto the hose are more trouble than they are worth.

Choose 1/4" tubing that is flexible. Stiff tubing has a mind of its own - it tends to pull emitters out of position and doesn't stay where you put it.

Only partially flexible to change to different planting layouts.

Needs to be installed on fairly level ground or in series of level segments.

Susceptible to clogging by dirt and algal / fungal growth that can disable emitters after a few years.

Inexpensive systems plagued by inflexible, hard to hide pipe, variable water pressure and unreliable fittings.

Each system seems to use special fittings that are incompatible with other systems.

Easy to install, with normal hose fittings.

Easy to adjust layouts as you change planting plans.

Invisible when buried.

Keeps foliage dry.

Quite efficient with water, but not as much so as a drip system.

Watering zone is narrow - so layout is important to deliver the water to the roots.

Needs to be installed pretty much level, so you need to plan your layout.