For years, I've struggled with hoses. Yes, we have a drip system, but I also have various containers that need watering - containers that are in the far reaches of the garden or up on porches. Dragging out the hose has been a chore, every other day, for my whole damn life, it seems. The hoses you buy at the box stores are huge, heavy affairs - when they kink, it's a half-day project to untangle them. Plus they all seem to be in bright, garish colors which don't blend in with the landscape. If you tend to leave your hoses lying around (because they SUCK to put away in a neat coil, really, who is able to do that?), they are a blot on your otherwise-lovely garden scene. And don't get me started on the hose-end sprayers. I must have gone through 20 different kinds in my gardening career and they all stink. The handles break if dropped, or they catch on the ends of beds, or they make my hands hurt (something that you never foresee happening until you turn 50 and suddenly you can't even water your yard anymore without arthritis pain).
The other day, I forgot to turn off my spigot after watering and my hose actually BROKE from the water pressure. It popped off the sprayer which took the screwy-thing-end of the hose with it. At first I was mad, but then I thought, "Hey, maybe I can finally find a hose that I actually like. Is there such a thing?"
So I started doing some research. As long as I was buying a new hose, I wanted it to be food-grade; no BPA, phthalates, or toxic chemicals (we get enough soil-killing stuff in our municipal water, why compound that problem?). I wanted it to be made in the USA. I wanted it to be light! Oh yes very light! I wanted it to be easy to move around! Flexible for fitting around tight corners! I wanted the fittings to be well-made and leak-proof. I wanted it to be a color that blended in to the yard, instead of standing out.
I remembered reading about such a thing on a blog I like to visit, A Way to Garden. The author used to be the editor-in-chief of Martha Stewart Living Magazine, but left that job to garden on a large property in upstate NY. Even though a lot of her information is for east coast gardeners, I really enjoy reading her posts. She has a mindset like mine when it comes to nature - she likes insects and wildlife. And she's really the one that got me into underplanting trees. Anyway, she had found this particular hose and declared it nearly perfect.
This hose is made by a company called Water Right, Inc, which is located near Portland, OR. I ordered two hoses and I got them yesterday and I hooked them up this morning and I am in love. Water Right doesn't know I bought these, and doesn't know I'm blogging about them, I purchased them with high hopes that I would find something so much better than my old hose, and I have, and I'm not getting any money or anything from the company, I just want to share this with you because I am SO PLEASED.
Check out the difference in size between my old hose and this new one. They are both 50 feet long.
This hose is so light! And it's so easy to move around! It makes taking out the hose and watering a pleasure rather than a chore. This company believes in American-made products, so it's all made right here. The hose is food grade. All the colors are muted, but I went with olive green. The fittings are very well-made.
I could not be happier. They are on the expensive side - $50-60 bucks on Amazon - but well worth every penny. They come in four lengths: 25, 50, 75, and 100 ft. Plus they have a five-year guarantee.
While I was at it, I bought new hose-end sprayers. One broke when the hose burst, obviously, but I was also tired of my hands hurting so badly, and the handle catching on everything as I tried to haul in the hose at the end of every watering session. I decided on Dramm sprayers, and I'm extremely pleased with these as well.
It has all the standard spray settings, but what I like is that the on/off is worked by your thumb. So you don't have to hold a trigger handle down with your grip. Honestly I think half the battle with my hands was dragging that heavy, unwieldy hose around, so having a super-light, flexible hose attached to this thumb-triggered sprayer is really going to help.
Hope this is good information for anyone else who has hated their hose for years, like I have!