Delivering water to plants in the garden is not hard. Early farmers mastered the concept thousands of years ago with shallow irrigation ditches, and we haven’t advanced much beyond that except to make the ditch portable-in the form of garden hoses.
The tough part is keeping the overflow off weed seeds, sidewalks, and tender leaves while you water. A sprinkler sprays water everywhere, inefficiently watering everything within its reach. Puddles form on the patio, opportunistic weeds flourish, and a lot of water simply evaporates before it gets to the plants. But soaker hoses make the process of watering the garden supremely efficient, because they deliver water directly where you want it and slowly enough that very little is lost before the plants can absorb it.
They cost about the same as good-quality garden hoses, but soaker hoses do a far better job of nourishing only the plants you want and ignoring the ones you don’t want. Soaker hoses also reduce the amount of water lost to evaporation or runoff. One estimate from a manufacturer of soaker hoses suggests that they can cut the amount of water a garden uses by as much as 70 percent. For people whose water is metered, that can mean a significant savings; for those who don’t, the benefits to the plants and to the environment ought to be compelling.
“Shrubs and vegetable gardens aren’t like lawns, where it’s most effective to have a lot of water shot over a large area at once; they want the water targeted to their roots,” says Dr. Gary Watson, plant clinic manager at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. “With soaker hoses you can be much more effective with your water.”
Soaker hoses differ from garden-variety hoses in their basic makeup. While a traditional hose only spouts water from its ends, soakers essentially “sweat” water out of pores all along their length. Laid on the ground in a flower or vegetable bed, they weep water onto the soil surface, where it can begin soaking down to the roots right away. If giving a flower bed 30 minutes under the sprinkler is like creating a steady downpour over them, using a soaker hose is the equivalent of treating them to a long, gentle rain-and they love it.
“You’re feeding the roots deeply, which trees and shrubs prefer,” says Nadine Bopp, a landscape architect with Lakeside Landscape Co. in Northbrook. “You have water coming in at a slow, steady rate so it can percolate down to where the roots can pick up the nutrients. With a regular watering system, there are so many gallons per minute coming in that a lot of it just runs over the surface of the soil.”
Bopp says slow water delivery is especially important in very hot weather, when the ground is parched. A blast of water from a sprinkler can simply bounce off the hard soil surface, she says, but a soft trickle will delicately massage the soil apart and work its way in. Watson adds that because water is delivered directly to the soil-and frequently in the cool shady spots beneath the plants themselves-hardly any water is lost to evaporation, which always happens when watering with a sprinkler during warm daylight hours.
Vegetable plants whose leaves tend to be victimized by fungus appreciate ground-level watering, too, says Peter Hogg, product support manager for Aquapore, the Arizona-based makers of the Moisture Master brand of soaker hoses.
You’ll need more
One slight disadvantage of using soaker hoses is that you generally need to have more of them than you would have traditional hoses. That’s because they are best left in place. A few reasons: Soaker hoses are amazingly flexible-much more so than other hoses, which tend to kink and roll out of place if you want them to do anything but trace a straight line. Also, most are made of UV-resistant rubber, so they won’t crack under a hot sun. Finally, their utility is largely a product of their convenience; you can place them so that they only water certain plants. Once you’ve gone to the trouble to get them placed, it’s hard to justify shifting them around the garden all summer.
Some simple math goes into the planning of a soaker hose system. First, measure how many linear feet of hose you will need for each section. If you have a vegetable garden with four eight-foot rows, you’ll need 32 feet of soaker. If you have six rose bushes planted three feet apart, you’ll need 18 feet. Add on enough to accommodate curves: In the vegetable garden, for example, you’d want the hose to run down one row and double back along the second, then turn and run down the third, forming a series of S-curves.
This is best handled with a length of string, rope or garden hose rather than complex calculations. The same is true for a perennial bed or any other area that doesn’t have plants laid out in orderly straight lines. If, for instance, you want the hose to bob and weave between several shrubs as if it’s in a slalom race, figuring the curves could become a nightmare. Trace a curving line through the bed that passes within each plant’s drip line (the outer rim of the circle formed by the branches).
With a total length of soaker in mind, decide whether you will simply string a series of hoses together or connect soaking and non-soaking lengths.
The easier route is to use hoses only. You would string three or four together, and place them along the line you traced for measuring. Keep in mind that water flows out from every inch of soaker hose, not only from the end. Although you could string together a dozen garden hoses and still get about the same water pressure spurting out the end, using more than four soaker hoses at once can dramatically reduce the amount of water available for the last hose on the line.
You can greatly extend the reach of a soaker hose system by inserting non-soaking lengths where no water is needed. Several of the big do-it-yourself chains sell garden hose in bulk and easily installed fittings for the ends.
Figure out where you need water and where you don’t-across a pathway in the vegetable garden, for instance, or along a garage wall that separates two planted beds-and use bulk hose for the dry places. Most brands of soaker hoses sell only in 25- and 50-foot sections, but you can cut them to fit and install new fittings quickly, following the directions that come with the fittings.
Cover ’em up
Installing soaker hoses couldn’t be easier. Just put them on the ground, following the line you used for measuring if there was one, or if not, making sure the hose passes within each plant’s drip line. Although the hoses are very flexible, if asked to hold a tight curve they usually creep into a wider shape. Hold the hose in place with light metal U-shaped stakes at any point where it seems to want to creep or to rise off the ground. If the hose still wants to creep, use twist ties to secure it to the stakes. Avoid hairpin curves, and never fold the hose into a 90-degree angle. That will block the flow of water.
Soaker hoses that run beneath mature or very bushy plants may be unobtrusive. In other settings, you can hide them under 2 to 3 inches of landscape mulch. “If the bed is not already mulched, consider doing it, not only to cover the black hoses, but to increase the water savings even more,” Hogg says. Keep some extra mulch around for cosmetic work, because the low mound of mulch over the soakers sometimes thins under heavy rain, letting bits of the black tube show through.
Finally, watering via soaker hose demands a little self-restraint. Don’t crank the water up as high as it will go. In order to ensure that water seeps gently from the hose, turn the spigot just one-quarter to one-half of one revolution. Then let it run up to twice as long as you would a regular sprinkler. Plants get less water per minute, but a more satisfying drink over all. Keep in mind that most plants in your garden are happier with slow and steady water than with gushes followed by dry spells.
