I don't use soaker hoses as given the location of my gardens relative to the hose outlets would make it problematic to water this way. As well we do have one rain barrel which of course is my go to water source for plants.

I don't do a lot of supplemental watering. For plants that love water (ie, asttilbes!), I use half gallon water jugs that I put a tiny hole in using a pushpin. I thin fill it with water, set it near the base of the plant and forget it.

In extended driught conditions like we've been having, I'll finally break down and set up the sprinkler.

Automatic sprinkler system. Best.Money.Ever.Spent (well, maybe not EVER, but certainly at the top of the list)

For pots on the patio and porch, I use a watering can.

I hate watering. I HATE WATERING.

I do envy you mxk3. If ever I move and I have a clean gardening slate I will have an underground automatic system put in.

I'm a stander around with a hose kind of waterer. I also hate watering so only really beak down and do it if I need an excuse to stand around and stare at my plants (hand watering gives you the perfect alibi to stand out there and just admire your plants!) or I water when things really look like they are about to die.
If I could commit to a bed layout and permanent plant positions I'd consider a watering system, but things change so frequently it would be a waste, plus I only water a few things so why bother wasting water on everything?
.....actually there is a sprinkler system installed in my yard by the previous owners but I was told it leaks (never checked) and I don't really care to water the lawn, so it just sits there, every now and then I dig up a sprinkler head or PVC pipe.

Wait I forgot that I do water the deck and porch pots. They're hooked up to a drip irrigation system on a timer. It was easy to set up and keeps them perfectly moist. They would be dead by now if it was up to me! I did break down and run a few lines to certain moisture loving perennials and annuals in the ground. Can't have everything parched and dry in August :)

Love soaker hoses! But they donâÂÂt last many yrs so I try for ones with a guarantee & save sales receipts. Also have one favorite small one that I just move around - relatively short, flat soaker hose that I fold in 4th's, looks like it is made out of some sort of fabric: âÂÂGilmour Flat Soaker Hose,â lifetime warranty.

The way soaker hoses work is that the water does not go to the end so I can attach a small, regular hose, or a reel hose, at the end with a plastic cutoff screwed on at very end set to let water barely drip. Or just circle a plant, 2x, with the end of the soaker hose as the end section will not have much water. If you lose the end cap of soaker hose, LoweâÂÂs sells them, cheap. Near the washers for hoses in the hose dept.

My climate is extremely wet so I mainly use the 25 ft size for dry spells but most of you have larger yards & live in drier climates than mine. Link is example only, no personal experience with this Amazon seller. Suggest local store as lifetime warranty says âÂÂReturn to store for replacementâ & you would probably have to pay shipping to send back to online store.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gilmour Soaker Hose at Amazon

I used soaker hoses to initially establish the garden here - they were especially important for the areas under the pines and the oak. I haven't used those hoses in years now and a lot of them have been cut when digging planting holes for new things and/or removed. Some are still there because removing them would be too much of a problem (e.g. some run under paths or under plants and would cause damage if I tried to remove them. The key, for me, with the soakers was not to exceed about 100' in length and to turn the hose on full blast after connecting it to the soaker - otherwise there wasn't enough water pressure to send the water the full length of the soaker. I used a soaker again when we established the 'moat bed' in the front garden a few years ago. Once things are established, they are on their own for the most part. New plantings get hand watered if necessary in the first year or two.

Pots are a PITA - and are DH's responsibility since he retired a couple of years ago :-) he's not bothered by the heat as much as I am so doesn't mind standing out there to water. Most of the stuff in pots is veggies so he's the veggie gardener!

I have an automatic watering system and his name is Mike! My DH does all the supplemental watering of the garden. We have 100' of hose hooked up to a single sprinkler on top of a tripod for the backyard beds/lawn. He breaks the yard up into 7-8 sections for the backyard alone. When we go through a bad hot/dry spell he goes out and waters a section at a time for a couple/few hours deep,soaking. Fortunately we have a great well. I'm actually surprised though we haven't burned out the pump. There are days where the water is on from 7am until midnight, but we try to water as infrequently as possible.

We have a sprinkler on a fence post that does the cottage area and our Japanese maple area. Our front slope is usually on its own, but at times a 50' hose is dragged down there.

I don't have a lot of pots, so we catch the air conditioner drips into a large watering can and I water pots with those and DH empties the dehumidifier into pots as well.

The hardest thing I have a problem with is remembering to water all the plants/shrubs that I've purchased that are in various holding areas. Not that they're hard to get to with a hose or can, but I usually hide them behind/under shrubs for shade, so I forget about them!

I know on another thread there was a discussion about hoses. I did buy some Flex-Able hoses this year and I have to say I really like them a lot. They are so light weight and I get good pressure from them. They are easy to carry around to plug into spigots in case newly planted plants need even more water. The diameter isn't that wide, so I don't think I would ever consider actually hooking the up to a sprinkler, but used with their nozzle that comes included they work very well.

PM2, if you need some supplemental water near that side of the yard with all those trees, my parents use a watering system that I think they got from lowes. They're out of town, but when they get back I'll ask them what it's called. It is basically thin lines that you hook an end to a hose, and off those lines come little sprinkler heads. They have lots and lots of hydrangeas, camellias, and other shrubs planted amongst trees and they position the heads so that each shrub gets one directly watering it.
I just checked their website, and I think they used what's in the link below, but I'll verify with them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lowes Mister irrigation system

We have so many Endless Summers and they are such crybabies if they aren't watered just about every day during the hot weather. Sure, i *could* ignore them..however..they make all the gardens look pitiful when they're all wilted over ykwim?

rouge21, IâÂÂve often thought about getting a rain barrel but I never do get around to doing it. So do you have a hose running from the rain barrel?

a2zmom, I like the way you keep your astilbes happy. IâÂÂm going to have to try that.

mxk3, IâÂÂve always wondered if the automatic watering, keeps the garden too wet and promotes foliage issues. Have you had any problems in that regard? Any drawbacks you can think of?

Kato, Sounds like you enjoy watering. I sometimes enjoy standing with a hose and a nozzle and watering by hand and part of that is just slowing down to get a good look at a bed. I just grow more and more tired of dragging a hose around for the whole garden when we get drought conditions which seem to be almost every summer for me.

River crossroads, thanks for the link for that soaker hose. I already have a lot of hose, that is still good. I also use quick connects with hoses and nozzles. It seems like more trouble than it's worth if I have to go out and connect the main hose to every soaker hose one by one. When I put two or three together maybe the water pressure at my house doesnâÂÂt get the water into that second hose. IâÂÂve thought about checking my water pressure, but never get around to that either. It seems like itâÂÂs average though.

Woody, I still have hoses in my foundation beds out front but I am not using them either. Yes, the pots take time standing in the heat in heat waves like weâÂÂve had. I think kato has the right idea connecting hers with a system. I'm not sure that would work for me because of how far from the spigot my pots are.

thyme2dig, Mike! What a guy!! :-) He must enjoy the garden. I can see needing a tripod on your large property. He waters each section a little longer than I do, thatâÂÂs good to know. I usually go with 1 or 1.5 hours in each position and I guess thatâÂÂs not enough. Great to have a well that keeps up with your demand! We start early, sometimes 5am, but we quit earlier than you, about 8pm.

I have the same problem remembering plants in pots I am holding. I like them in the shade along my fence and sometimes I forget them there.

You know, maybe that is just what I need is a watering system on the side of the garden that is the driest. I looked at that mister irrigation system at LoweâÂÂs and that doesnâÂÂt look too bad to install. And a lot of happy reviews too. I'll go back and check it out some more.

Lots of different ways of taking care of the watering here. Thanks!

This post was edited by prairiemoon2 on Mon, Jul 22, 13 at 15:12

I'm envious of gardeners who don't worry about every drop of water. I'm in New Mexico, normally a desert area (annual rainfall: 9.75 in), but undergoing the third year of drought with rainfall last year of under 6". Water is precious. We have an irrigation system which we converted from pop-up sprinklers to drip. The bluegrass lawn was removed and replaced with buffalo grass. We have two thousand gallon storage tanks to save water that falls on the roof - currently only one is connected up, DH is still working on the second.

The garden is slowly being renovated after years of neglect. Soil is like concrete, heavy alkaline clay high in salts because of the low rainfall. The first tool recommended in a Southwestern gardening book is a jack hammer. Second is a pickaxe. They're not kidding.

Every new plant that goes in has to be drought tolerant and capable of withstanding the intense sunlight and weeks of temperatures in the high 90s and into the 100s. We live in the foothills of the mountains, so wildlife runs rampant through the gardens. We have bears, coyotes, rabbits, pack rats and quail who will eat anything. We've had rattlers sipping from the drip emitters, and bobcats strolling down the driveway.

This is the third garden I've put in, having lived in the Midwest and New England until 2 years ago. It's a different world.

Cheryl

IâÂÂve often thought about getting a rain barrel but I never do get around to doing it. So do you have a hose running from the rain barrel?

I was the same way 'prairie' ie postponing getting a rain barrel. But given the increasing pressure on on water supply, all of us (gardeners) should do what we can to have at least one barrel on our property. I think this will be the third summer having ours and I simply place the end of the plastic hose you see in the picture into a 3 gallon watering can and I fill up as needed. For sure nothing fancy.

The more I look into it, the more I'm convinced that drip irrigation is the way to go. The one that I favor at this time is the one with holes spaced every 6 inches. All you require is a pressure reducer, a valve and a timer plus the plastic tubing. It is water efficient, easy to assemble and cost effective. Automatic watering systems are great for lawns, not so great if you have a clump of tall plants in your flower bed, hello dry spots. The link below has a lot of information - from a starter kit to a more extensive layout.

Here is a link that might be useful: Northern Garden Supply

Jade: I have had the opposite experience; we moved from desert regions to the Midwest. We have lived in a few different places due to work, but mostly I have gardened in arid climates. The first year we lived here, we all marveled over water "that falls from the sky like magic" and my kids would run outside during rains.

This year has been exceptionally dry though and I do think we all need to be prepared to deal with dwindling (or at least erratic) water resources.

I water with a hose. I have 150 feet of heavy black hose that I drag around the yard. I wouldn't put in a sprinkler system as I feel they are wasteful - so much water evaporates before it hits the ground.

When I water with my hose, I hardly ever "shower" the garden. I go from plant to plant and hold the hose to the base of the plant and give it a good deep drink. (If I can't reach the base of the plant I put the nozzle on "full" to get a stream and shoot it to the base of the plant, standing as close as I can.) Needless to say, I don't water often! Actually, I think yesterday was the first day I watered the entire garden. Before that, it was either watering plants as they were planted, or giving some supplemental water with a watering can to new plantings. And of course watering the pots on the patio. Yesterday was the first day I dragged the house out.

I tried soaker hoses. Bought them set them up, used those earth staples to put them in place... and when I turned the water on there wasn't enough pressure. I kinda don't get it - when I stand there with 150 feet of hose to water, there's okay pressure, but when the same 150 feet is hooked up to the soaker hoses, the pressure seems so much less. So up came the soakers.

While I hear great things about the drip irrigation, I'm worried it wil go the same route as the soakers - money, time, effort, not enough pressure! So I'm hesitant.

I do have three rain barrels, but as DH doesn't want to cut into the drainspouts, they are just "freestanding", with no water source other than rainfall. It helps a bit (especially this year!) and they do have spigots at the bottom to fill the watering cans. One of them is by my back door, and I keep it to dump shower water, dehumidifier water, cooking water, veggie-cleaning water, etc., which then gets used mostly for the potted patio plants or the pot ghetto which is closer to the house than the gardens.

jadeite, I commend you for your water-saving techniques, and I think we all really need to practice them. Water is a disappearing necessity, and as a society we waste so much of it.

Dee

Trovesoftrilliums - are you shocked by the frigid winters? And amazed by the wonderful soil? I miss the feel of rich earth. We love the sound of thunder, and the smell of rain is sweeter than I ever realized.

We started with soaker hose which I had in the Midwest and New England, but we couldn't get the pressure down. Instead of soaking, the hose sprayed. So we took it all out and replaced it with drip which is the most efficient way to water. It's a PITA to install because every time you add or move a plant, you have to adjust the emitters. My long-suffering husband buys the tubing in 100' lengths, with plugs and emitters by the bucketload. They clog because the water is loaded with calcium, so he's resigned to replacing them regularly. The irrigation runs on a timer so we have it set to water in the evening or early morning. The system works beautifully.

A friend of mine who is building a house has installed cisterns for water storage. She told me that in some New Mexico counties, a water harvesting or storage system is mandatory for any new construction. They will harvest the water from their roof, plus recycle grey water. We're planning to use grey water once we get our tanks connected.

Our water use is depleting the aquifer which supplies all our drinking water by about 3' per year. This can't continue forever.

Cheryl

Am a big fan of soaker hoses and they been working fine for me. But they work well only when the hose length is less than fifty feet. They are ideal for flat surfaces. I always place the hose on top of the soil rather than burying it under the soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: irrigation sprinklers

For me watering has become about choosing and compromising between patients convenience and my desire to be environmentally friendly. I personally have four 55 gallon rain barrels buried 3/4 of the way in the ground at the downspouts of my house which I connect with one of the two sump pumps I have, supplied electricity via an extension cord connected to an exterior outlet . As much as I hate weaving a garden hose through my beds to avoid crushing plants I hate watering from a can more, even worse is watering via a can and having to wait for a gravity fed rain barrel spigot to fill it; that is the reason I use sump pumps. Using a pump also allows the opportunity to bury the ugly things . But when it doesn't rain regularly I end up putting out a sprinkler at the point when I can no longer stand to see my precious plants be deprived any longer.
Thankfully the pressure from the sump pump is just enough to be able to walk around with my thumb over a garden hose and water that way but it's slow compared to using city water pressure. The benefits are having economical, chlorine/ fluoride free, and PH neutral water . The last bit is especially helpful when you have sensitive house plants or need to continuously top off a pond with a small leak! Like most situations people would prefer the easy and least physical effort solution whether it be drip irrigation sprinkler systems or even soaker hoses but they all have their obvious draw backs as people have already attested to in this forum . I think a lot of people would agree a great garden is never an easy garden and watering is just another chore of the hundreds that have to be done.

I don't use a soaker hose because I have a large garden, I wouldn't like looking at it and it would require using city water to water the majority of my plants. But your need might be completely different then mine and I say go with what works for you. Its sounds like your soaker hose problem is that you have too many connected together. So you might try grouping the hoses you have into smaller zones you can then alternate in having them connected to your downspout so you're providing the hoses with sufficient water pressure.

I've started reading a fascinating (and beautiful) book, "The Layered Garden" by David Culp.

He gardens in a temperate region (southwestern Pennsylvania) same as me and he talks about gardening through the terrible drought of 2010 - the second driest summer in 20 years and many days in a row over 90 degrees.

He never watered and while he did lose a few plants, the vast majority survived, looking a bit worse for wear but they all recovered once the rain came.

I think it's true that most plants are more resiliant than we think.

Prariemoon: No, things don't get overwatered, because I don't water every day. They are different zones for different areas, and lawn is separate from beds, can set the different zones for different days and #minutes of watering. I also have a sensor on the roof, so if the sensor is too moist the system won't turn on (it won't run in the rain or too soon after a rain).

I haven't even turned the to "auto" yet this year - it's been raining so much (a good thing!). I just hit the manual button if I want to water a particular area.

Downside is until I got the hang of how much to water, the water bill was $$$$ !!

Cheryl, IâÂÂve never lived anywhere but in New England. Living in the Southwest, there is a whole palatte of plants that are suited to that low rainfall. Plants that wouldnâÂÂt work in New England gardens with the amount of rain we get. Like you said, âÂÂa different worldâÂÂ. Sounds very challenging, but IâÂÂve seen some examples of Southwestern gardens that were very beautiful too.

Rouge21, thanks for the photo of your rain barrel. IâÂÂm sure every little bit helps, but how much of your garden can you water with just a watering can and one rain barrel? In areas where there is serious drought, IâÂÂve noticed that sometimes they build water conservation into the home design. Large capacity storage underground and better ways of collecting.

What slows down the process of getting that rain barrel, for me, are, IâÂÂm always concerned that IâÂÂm not going to be able to adapt the downspout to the barrel right and/or IâÂÂm going to pull down the whole downspout or gutter while trying to, or I wonâÂÂt be able to set up the hose out part of it and the mosquitoes that would be attracted to one.

Cheryl, That is the reason I have hesitated to add drip irrigation, the pain to install and having to move them every time you rearrange your beds. IâÂÂm constantly rearranging and moving things, so itâÂÂs just one more thing to complicate it. And the clogging, I forgot about that. IâÂÂve heard others complain about that in the past. I hate to say it but it does sound like a headache, but maybe the reality isn't as bad as it sounds.

Heighte, IâÂÂm curious how you attach the main hose from the spigot to your soaker hoses? Do you have to make repeated trips to the yard to disconnect from one 50 ft hose and reconnect to the next?

GardenEcstasy, youâÂÂre right, we naturally all want what is âÂÂeasy and the least physical effort solutionâ and nothing is perfect. I also have the same concerns about economy, and chlorine/flouride free water. I suspect my garden would do much better without city water for that reason.

A2zmom, I believe you, that our plants are more resilient. IâÂÂve had that experience too. But itâÂÂs also about growing a garden that is attractive and if your plants are lacking water to the point that the they are looking awful, then you have a pretty unattractive garden to look at the rest of the season and forget about a fall garden.

'prairie' wrote: but how much of your garden can you water with just a watering can and one rain barrel?

This particular barrel I think has about 220 litre capacity (about 60 US gallons?).

My large watering can is 3 gallons (that is a large watering can).

And so of course doing the math, I can fill this watering can 20 times. That isn't an insignificant amount of watering for a residential garden.

I am thinking that with just one more barrel I could do all my hand watering via rain water?

I think it would be an unusual situation for a home gardener not being able to accommodate (at least) one barrel. All of us together doing this would be a significant first easy step to conserving water.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Tue, Jul 23, 13 at 10:37

Prairiemoon - we kept records of water use since moving into our present home. The previous owners used about 22,000 gal per month. We found this incredible, but that number was consistent as far back as the water authority had records. We took out the bluegrass lawn last year. The buffalo grass needed daily watering for 2 months with the sprinkler system until established. Our monthly use was close to 20,000 gallons thanks to the sprinklers which have now been disconnected. BTW the lawn is roughly 20 ft x 50 ft. We have an acre of land, most of which is not irrigated (all cactus and boulders, a few trees and scrub).

After we disconnected the whole sprinkler system, our water use this spring was about 10,000 gal before the storage tanks, drip irrigation etc. Last month we used 6000 gal thanks to the drip system. Our household use is about 3500 gal so 2500 went to the garden. The tanks will hold 2200 gal between the two. 1" of rain on our roof is about 1500 gal of water into the tanks. My hope is that we can use rainwater for irrigation during the summer, supplementing with grey water during the winter. This is the only reasonable way we can have a garden that isn't all cactus and gravel.

If you work out your water use, you may be surprised at how much water goes to the garden, and what conservation can do to offset that amount.

Cheryl

This is a great conversation and I agree with Rouge that fresh water is something we can all work toward conserving. Better yet as garden enthusiasts, we can lead by example in our communities.

We have a 1 acre yard/garden in a semi-arid climate so water use is often at the top of our list for garden planning. We have 2 60 gallon rain barrels with plans for one more asap. They are fantastic. I used to fill up cans and trot around, but now I just attach a hose and it's a lot quicker that way. I still do use cans on some things, but the hose makes it just as convenient as using tap water.

To those who might be wary of cutting into your downspouts - don't sweat it. It is a very simple process - and even if you totally blow it, a new piece of downspout is an easy thing to replace. For our setup we have a slide-on coupler in the downspout. In the summer, we slide the bottom part of the downspout off and then put the barrel underneath. In the winter we remove the barrel and re-attach the bottom part of the downspout. It's a 20-second operation. So I can understand that it might seem difficult, but it really isn't. I encourage you to take the plunge!

Many catalogs also sell downspout diverters and other things.

I am also a big fan of soaker hoses because they use water efficiently since there is no water being wasted by instant evaporation as with a sprinkler. We have soaker hoses embedded in most of our gardens. My problem lately is that I've damaged many of them by inadvertent shovel pruning. But one by one I am putting in barbed coupler pieces to reconnect the severed ends.

Our subdivision limits water use to 58,000 gallons per month and a lot of people have trouble staying under that. Yes, you read that correctly. Nearly 2,000 gallons per day is not enough for many folks! That is outrageous if you ask me. Of course, bluegrass lawns are the worst offenders which is why we have a brownishgrassTM lawn this time of year. I view the brownish lawn and its dandelions as living proof that we refuse to douse our lawn in chemicals and excessive water!

Photo below of one of our rain barrels along with our compost tumbler.

This post was edited by karin_mt on Tue, Jul 23, 13 at 16:59

Rouge21, That is a decent amount from one barrel. IâÂÂm just thinking of how long I have to leave the hose running fully open, to use the sprinkler all over the yard and how many watering cans that would equal and how many trips back and forth to the plants I'd make with a smaller one gallon container, so that would be ninety trips for one rain barrel.

I have had the water running for a day and a half to get the whole garden watered and according to how much time in each location, thyme2dig waters, IâÂÂm watering 1/2 of what they do and from the results, IâÂÂm still not watering enough. And if we have no rain in a whole month, then IâÂÂd have to water at least twice that month, so thatâÂÂs a lot of water and it seems to me I could fill your twenty 3 gallon watering cans in a few hours running my hose. So IâÂÂm not sure how two rain barrels can keep my whole garden watered.

Not that IâÂÂm disagreeing with you that it would be great if we all had water storage. A lot of rain must come off the roof. I'm thinking to make it less work, a pump system like Cheryl uses so you could water with soaker hoses or drip irrigation seems a necessity for some gardeners.

Cheryl, we also have a small lawn in the back about 25 x 40 and a smaller one in the front. Which we rarely water. We cut it long and 3/4 of all our lawn is in shade by 2pm. But we make up for that water use, watering shrubs and perennial beds. WeâÂÂre on 1/4 of an acre. Our beds are heavily mulched to try to preserve moisture. That is amazing that so much of the water use goes to the garden. I imagine ours must be a lot too, IâÂÂve never calculated it. And your plants probably need less water than ours.

karin, quite frankly, IMO, that's disgusting that people have trouble keeping water usage under 58,000 gallons per month! Am I reading this right? Is that 58,000 per household or for the entire subdivision? If it is per household, as I am reading it, you are so right that that is just outrageous. Wow....

And speaking of wow, you sure do have a gorgeous view right off your front porch! Beautiful mountains!

PM2, mosquitoes are not a problem with the rain barrels. Simply cover the top with screening, or drop a BT dunk in them. I use the screening as it helps keep out leaves and twigs as well.

Dee

Yes Dee, you are reading it right! 58,000 gallons per month for each household. Every year the water provider sends out threatening letters if you go over but as far as I can tell, there's not much teeth to it. Sad.

Those mountains are not only lovely, but they are also the source of our water thanks to the winter snowpack. But I don't think we should take that for granted these days!

Oh, and the lawn is green in that pic only because it was taken in June. The lawn looks pretty crappy now, even though we do water it a bit.