Garden Hose Care and Maintenance Tips From the Experts

By Swindon Link - 1 June 2021

Home and Garden

 

 

There are lots of things that people can do to ensure their gardens look lovely. They can purchase beautiful plants and shrubs; they can regularly weed the flower beds and mow the lawns. Whilst there are things that gardeners can control, the weather is not one of them. If it’s summer and there’s not much rain, a garden hose may be needed to provide extra moisture on a frequent basis. 

 

There’s nothing worse than seeing an untended hose lying around someone’s garden. It will be likely to get tangled and dented, not to mention covered in dirt and mud. Besides making the area look untidy, it can be a trip hazard for anyone who walks past. If you store it loosely in your garage it could also suffer harm, and even be driven over by your car. The best way to preserve a garden hose is by maintaining it correctly. We will now talk about the best ways that this can be done. 

 

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

The best place to start is by purchasing quality equipment. If someone buys a stainless steel garden hose reel it will be more resilient if it’s needed for heavy-duty purposes. If the connections are made of brass, they will be more durable than aluminum alloy. 

 

If floor space is limited in your garden shed, a wall-mounted reel would prevent you from treading on it and creating kinks. Whilst some of these features may cost more, they will help prolong the life of your hose. 

 

 

Put It Away Every Time

Whilst it’s inconvenient and difficult to drag a full length of hose across the garden, a reel can make life easier. Its retractable nature enables gardeners to quickly wind it up, ready to be stored away. If this doesn’t happen, the weather will take its toll upon the hose and make it brittle and liable to leak. It would also be more likely to become knotted and tangled up.  

 

When storing the hose, try not to bend it sharply and never hang it on a hook or nail. The best thing is to buy a hose reel, hanger, or pot for storage purposes.

 

Miscellaneous Things

When removing your hose from a faucet, don’t do so from a sharp angle. Replace the washers whenever there appear to be drips, and start the spring season with new ones. If you look online there are also helpful tips for dealing with small leaks.

 

When you’ve used your hose for the last time this summer, be sure to empty all the water before you coil it up. It’s true that the open end is designed to cope with freezing water, but the hose fabric would suffer from the temperature changes. 

 

When you maintain a hose well it is more likely to serve you for a long time. It will be a joy to use, and easy to access or put away. In turn, your grass can stay green and luscious, and your plants need not be thirsty. 

 
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