How to Not Get Hosed This Summer
Are you tired of fighting your garden hose? Tired of kinks, leaks, knots, cracks, and bad fitting in your hose? Think this sound like the intro to a late-night TV commercial?
Actually, it does sound that way. None the less, there are a lot of garden hoses out there and it seems like all of them can be a pain. Have no fear, Pete Moss is here to help you decide which is the right hose for you.
Quality matters when buying a garden hose and you’re going to have to pay a bit more for this quality. Nobody likes to hear that, but you get what you pay for, and that’s really true with hoses. Stay away from the $9.99 special, ½” hoses. They’ll frustrate you more than you can imagine. At the same time, paying $79.99 for a ¾” hose may be overkill.
Look for a very flexible hose that says non-kink. My favorite in this type is the Flexogen. It’s not new or necessarily innovative, but they work very well, aren’t too heavy and last a long time. There’s a new-ish hose out there named Flexzilla similar, but even better. You either love or hate is neon-green color, though.
Contractor-grade rubber hoses are good, but they can be a pain. They’re very strong, resist kinks, have great connections, but they weigh a ton and can be quite the chore to roll up. If you’ve got a ranch-ette, or a mountain property, these may work well for you, but they’re not for the “little-old-lady” gardener.
So how about these as-seen-on-tv hoses? They are actually not bad. Not as perfect as they advertise, but they do work. The expanding hoses are very lightweight, work very well for a small in-town size lot, store easily and tend to not kink. They don’t magically retract themselves like they show on tv, but they do shrink up nicely. The metal garden hoses are too new to tell just how long they’ll last, but they also work well. Think they look like your hand-held shower hose? Yep, same idea.
The Zero-G garden hose is a new favorite of mine. It’s very light, but full sized. Its connectors are very nice and it handles well in the garden, though it can kink. Easy to store, easy to move around it is a very good deal.
The Perfect Garden Hose is another new-ish design that’s pretty amazing. You cannot kink it. Period. It’s very tough on the outside, very lightweight. It would be my favorite if it only worked a little better in hose reels and the connectors were better.
Basically, you’ve got to figure out where and how you’re going to use your hose, and what you need it for. No hose will fit all needs, but there are many to choose from at your local Ace Hardware. Need a specialty hose, like a 1” x 100’ heavy-duty hose for your ranch or farm, we can get it. Need a 10’ hose for a little container garden, we can help you with that too. Our helpful folks will keep you from getting hosed this summer, so come on in to Ace and tell them Pete Moss sent you!