Soaker hoses ?

One part of my garden is a 55m long wall, behind which is a long planted 'border' (or is it bed)
Behind that is a bank which has Leylandii on it - not my choice and not owned by me.
Typical width of flower bed is about 600mm / 24" ...

SWMBO has asked me could we put a soaker hose along bed to make watering easier ?

Just interested if anyone has experience of these - they are in 2 types ...weeping porous/permeable soaker hoses ... and perforated 'sprinkler' hoses.

http://www.hozelock.com/watering/hoses/porous-hoses/15m-sprinkler-hose-6756.html
or
http://www.hozelock.com/watering/hoses/porous-hoses/25m-soaker-hose-6764.html


Weeping hoses .. I'm guessing are not going to spread water much further than the hose itself ... which could mean very inconsistent watering.
Sprinkler may spray it everywhere ...


I have my own underground pressurised storage tank of water - so this is free.

any comments ?

 

We have used them. I find them a pain. Maybe on a small piece of property they are easier. But large places, got to run so many lines of hose and connections, it is crazy. They are put away in the shed and slowly I toss them. Never again. My water is also free except for the electric to pump it up from the well. My neighbor has a pump set up near her creek that draws some water from there for her further out garden areas on her property of 5+ acres.

 

I cannot help thinking, no matter how much water you 'send' to the border, the Leylandii will end up with most of it.

Cheers, Tony.

 

Well, I have to say I agree with redstar. I had one/some of the 'soaker' type and it was a real pain in the posterior. And this is why ...

First of all, I discovered (too late) that ideally it's best to bury it and to put it in place before you plant anything. Now, the instructions which came with mine said it could be laid on the surface or buried, so, since I'd already got plants in the ground I laid it on the surface. That was fine, but it was a 'new' recently planted area so the plants were quite widely spaced and, rather than watering exactly where it was needed, of course it watered everywhere. That, in itself doesn't sound too bad, but the amount of water 'seeping' out is fairly small so the hose has to go really close to any small plants.

In addition, despite its 'flexibility' I didn't find flexible enough, especially since it came (like all hosepipe), in a big 'coil', which meant when one bit was in contact with the ground, another bit 10' away was sticking up and, when you put that bit down yet another popped up somewhere else.

I assumed it would probably be better buried, delivering water where it was really needed, at the roots. This in itself caused problems. Burying the stuff meant digging a trench, granted not a huge task, but again you want the water delivered to the plant and you can only dig so close to the roots without disturbing them. And, assuming you can manage that (which you probably could since you're likely to be more careful than I), when/if you want to plant something else later on, you go to dig down, get your trowel or hand fork under the hose without realising and start to pull it up, pulling some nearby plants with it.

I also found that whilst 15m might sound sufficient, one strip/length of the stuff isn't nearly enough, the water seeps out where the pipe lays and doesn't really reach any further, so to water anything further than about 3" away from the pipe itself, you really need to lay 2, 3 or even 4 lengths side by side, so 15m goes nowhere.

All in all, it was a pain and, just like redstar, I gave up and consigned mine to the shed.

I've not tried the sprinkler type so can't comment - however ..... you could perhaps try something my Grandad did - before the invention of leaky hoses.

He'd buy some 'ordinary' but different coloured hose, chop it into various lengths and connect them all together with connectors. This he laid it around his garden (well his veggie plot, but same difference) and made holes in it where he wanted them - in the yellow say, he made bigger/more holes for things which required lots of water, smaller or fewer holes were made (in perhaps the green) for things which just wanted to be kept moist. In this way he knew instantly which had the large holes and which had the smaller and he was able to take this 'construction' apart at the end of each season and mix-n-match the various colours and lengths each successive year.

 

maybe I won't buy some of these then.

 

Why not try the hose that is a hose, and you add what you like to it (within reason) such as micro sprinkler, dripper, mister.
Just remembered it its Gardena

 

As I recall now, we got hose hoses from the in-laws house, they did not want them either. Husband thought we should try, that was years ago. Again, they are slowly being thrown out. Save your money.