How do you water your plants?

Last year it rained every day and I never needed to water. This year, we've had a handful of rainy days, but a very wet spring. This year I've used a combination of soaker hoses, watering cans and the garden hose. My neighbors laugh when I stretch 4 lengths of hose across the road to connect to the soaker hoses in the raised vegetable beds. In a more normal year, I usually just let the plants take care of them selves. I mulch heavily, so unless it's brutally dry, like this year, I don't really have too much of a problem.

I voted other because I use

Soaker hose/s
Plastic jugs buried next to plants
By hand, with a watering can
With the hose (or hose pipe if you're southern)

I go out with the hose and give everything a watering. Once in a while I'll see a plant that needs a little extra so I get out the can. Some of the flowers also get water from the sprinkler system, but they get watered mostly from the hose. I like that time to get a good look at everything.

I've just in the past two weeks moved to an area with severe water shortages. I chose this situation because the developers aren't much interested in Cambria. There's a 20+ year waiting list to get water rights for building. When the rest of California chose to import water via the Colorado River, Cambria and much of the rest of the county opted out. The sole source of water is from the natural rainfall and whatever is running in Santa Rosa Creek. When it gets really dry, they also use San Simeon Creek. I'd like to work with nature on this land (1/2 acre) and only plant things that can survive with what nature gives us. It's going to be a challenge I'm sure. But well worth it to have a town on the coast of California that only has 6000+ residents. I love it here and being able to water willy nilly would change all that. So I'm using the hose only for getting those little plants started; then the winter rains should establish them and they're pretty much on their own. Several of the plants that couldn't take it died and I'm sorry they got put there in the first place. I'm having a ball researching all the different possibilities and DG's Plant Files have helped tremendously. Thanks Dave, for starting and maintaining such an awesome site!

I voted other because I water several different ways.

I water the flowerbeds with a hose, the potted plants with a watering can, and the lawn and veggie gardens with an overhead sprinkler.

I just this year am trying soaker/sprinkler hoses. Lowe's has some that are less than $10 and hook end to end. I can water 150 foot long bed at a time. This has been a great help this year with the TX heat, and me working. I still pull out the sprinklers for the yard though. I told the DH that when I retire, we are getting a sprinkler system!

I voted "hose" (In what part of the South is "hosepipe" used? I googled the term and found it mentioned in a notice about watering restrictions in Great Britain). The hose attaches to the soaker system in the veggie garden and the sprinklers for the lawn. Watering the flowers with a hose allows me time to look at them! My favorite method, which I have used exclusively for the last few weeks and would prefer to use more, is to let rain do the watering for me.

I chose hose, since dr and chiropractor both nixed any more watering can from rainbarrels, effective right after wrenched back.

Up till then, watered exclusively from rain barrels until empty, hose only if absolutely necessary. Fortunately, one rain barrel has a hose hookup on it, so can still use it to water the garden, fruit trees in back and the blueberries. The other rain barrel needs a hose hookup, but still use a cup to water a few things close by.

Using the house hose for the new roses (until established and can make it on own), blackberries, container plants and fruit trees... ~ Suzi :)

I use an oscillating sprinkler for the majority of the garden. However, I have this patch of petasites japonicus giganteus that must be in a shady bog environment to be at its best. That bed gets 45 gallons of water a day.

I looked into buying a Gardena drip irrigation system that would have cost nearly $200 for all the gadgets. Not wishing to invest that much, I came up with a system of my own and I love it..

Basically I took a plastic 45-gallon barrel, went to Home-Depot and purchased a screw-in brass fitting with an inside diameter of 1/8 inch. I then went to the pet shop next door and purchased 50 feet of aquarium air tubing, a 5-outlet air valve and off I went.

The barrel was free: I have connections in the plastics industry. The pet shop supplies cost about $12 and the brass fitting cost $1.79. So far, so good. I drilled the barrel's side wall at the bottom, inserted the screw-in fitting, inserted a length of air line, inserted the valve and ran 5 water lines to the plants, held in place with a rock at the dripping end. The valve is used to split the water flow into each line.

I covered the top of the barrel with a moskito net. A goldfish lives in the barrel so no larvae and no algae will grow in there. Even when the barrel is "empty", there's an inch and a half of water for the goldfish. That's it. The system has been working flawlessly for 2 years now. There's only one inconvenient: I have to refill the barrel every day.

We have an irrigation system from our pond. All the water we need for lawn and garden.

Other includes: hose, underground sprinkler system on a deep well (very old but still repairable), watering can and soaker hose for my raised vegetable bed. Whatever it takes! :)

I voted other, because I use a number of these systems. Soaker hoses in some areas, overhead sprinklers in others, plastic jugs upsidedown in the raised beds, nature when it's available, and a fence mounted sprinkler kit for the raspberries. So, lots of different ways!

Depending on what needs watering I use soaker hoses on most of the flower beds.... Sprinklers on lawns and new shrub beds, the hose with a shower head on it for newly planted things and a watering can for things the others can't reach.

I guess you can tell I voted other.

I have an in-ground sprinkler system for the yard and some of the foundation plants, a watering wand with a water breaker (thanks for the right description, balvenie!), a soaker hose for my 'street' bed, a portable 'ticking' lawn sprinkler for a front bed, an above-the-table-on-a-timer sprinkler system for my hoop table, an in-the-ceiling sprinkler for the hoop house and an above ground pvc pipe/sprinkler heads sprinkler system weaving in and around my 100's of containers in the backyard.

What can I say, I live in dry deep South Texas.... ( : - }

I should have voted other, as I do use all the choices except leave to nature. We get vitually no rain, did have some in june and had a nice shower this morning and now predicted back into the 90s so will irrigating as usual, about 4 or 5 hours every day. DonnaS

Hose, sprinkler, soaker hose, and drip irrigation. Different for different areas; you gotta take watering seriously in Texas. ;)

everything above but the plastic jug

I voted other because one choice isn't enough. I use hose and sprinkler for the gardens and lawns, and watering cans for the containers on the deck above the garage.

This message was edited Aug 19, 2005 4:17 PM

I use a small watering can and make many, many trips back and forth. It's a great way to water the plants and accrue the steps on my pedometer. By the time I'm done with watering all my containers on the deck and around the house, I'd have taken about 3,000 steps.

Quyen - if I had used a small watering can, never would have hurt my back the way I did... Great idea! ~ Suzi :)

I use soaker hoses for bedded in plants and a hose for the pots nd new growth plants. One choice is not enough.

Maggie

I had to choose other for my answer. Sometimes I use various soaker hoses, sprinklers etc. but my trees & plants are not too fond of my well water which is hard and high in Iron. In the house we run it through a Culligan water softer system and ironater but then it is too high in water softening salts to give it to the plants. Alternatively I collect and stash as much rainwater as possible and hand water everthing with a bucket or watering can. Considering I live on acerage this is a little labour intensive. My watering woes will soon be solved however, as we have obtained a large metal tank (the size you see on the back of big trucks) that is being repaired, sandblasted, & painted. It will be used to collect the water coming off the shop (our largest building in the yard) during rains. We will then use an electric pump and sprinklers to distribute it to the trees and garden.

Way to go mkjones!!!!

I'm southern and I use a hose-pipe. Your basic nozzle for distances, the Miracle-Gro head for gentler distribution of drops, and no nozz around the front yard, where I go get scratched up under a gigantic volunteer holly. I swear by Mulch and had a new gratifying experience with composted manure, first year for trying that. Hose-piping is not all that, many of my plants have baked this year [even though maybe southern-fried could be more applicable] in spite of my vigilance because I cannot get up and outside early enough to fortify, watering at 7:am has proven to be the best for hose-pipe watering. The amazing instant-impatiens have impressed a few, re- inflates in 15 minutes with a good soaking. I've certainly got a lot of great ideas here today.

Great Songbird! Congrats on the huge tank! I have a water hose spigot on the one rainbarrel, not the other, though I wish I did. Sure makes it a lot easier now that not allowed to carry water by hand. ~ Suzi :)

We installed 1" pvc to carry the water to our beds then put the small 1/4 soaker hoses in the beds. We have it on a time. Works great and boy a lot less bother than last summer with watering twice a day through July and August. It used to take me 1 and 1/2 hours twice a day to keep them growing. Now I don't have to do a thing except ck occasionally to make sure that some little squirrel hasn't moved my hoses.

Well, there's nothing like being the minority of one.

I water my plants with buried pop bottles.

(Plastic jugs buried category)

I think this must still be a relatively new idea to many, although I've know of those who have used it for years.

I bought spikes from Lee Valley that have tiny holes in them & can be fitted onto 2-litre pop bottles. Then the bottoms of the bottles are cut out. Fit the spike onto the thread of the bottle, then insert the spike into the earth next to the plant.

Alternatively, the bottle itself can be buried next to the plant. Then water can be poured into the cut out opened end and will reach the deeper roots.

A very good method of encouraging deeper rooting, rather than shallow rooting.

Then the plants are able to withstand periods of drought way better.

Joan

I use a hose with a water-breaker wand attachment for most jobs.
Liquid fertilizer / fish emulsion mixture is applied by watering can.
LD

Mixed methods here too, but because I have several hundred ft of soaker hose, that is the one I chose. But the veggie garden gets a sprinkler, the grass depends on nature, the rows of Leeland cypress and the ornamentals in front of them have drips, and a hose is needed for potted specimens on the patio. All that can be are on little battery timers for 1-3 times a day here due to sandy soil. I could not have but 1/4 of my plants at best if I had to water by hand.

Yep, other. Because I use most of those methods depending on where the plants are and their needs. Also, I get more exercise using either the hose or the watering can!

I voted for other because I use just about all of the watering methods you listed in different areas of my garden.
That is except natural rain...as it doesn't usually rain in CA. in the summer. Makes it necessary to get water to the plants by an artificial way! Too bad, I would like alittle bit of rain for my garden.

Further to my post above, I also use a hose, soaker, and watering can. The bottle are for my tomatoes and dahlias.

Joan

Watering Can -- it is my best companion! It saves time and water and it provides the excercise of fetching water from the tank to the plants. I can alter the pressure of water when I use the shower head so that little seedlings will not be washed away. Water pressure is not of any worth when I use the hose and I found out that it requires more amounts of water than using the shower. I have many advantages with a can.

Dinu

With the hose

I have several ways. Mother Earth takes care of them, water very rarely with hose with spray nozzle attached, most of the time I fill up several plastic milk jugs with water and also some I already have filled with plant food in them. I also take my used dish water from my sink and fill containers up with that and take outside to water my plants with. This year I am going to try also using a soaker hose.

Barb

with a hose