Is watering your garden becoming a chore?

I had conversation with a friend just the other day and the conversation turned to the favourite topic of any gardener (and the British of course) – the weather! My friend expressed concern about the amount of time he was now going to have to spend watering his garden now that the weather has finally picked up.

I was surprised that, being the savvy gardener that he is; he hadn’t invested in a garden watering system of some kind. He has the type of garden that many people envy and if I had known he was watering it all by hosepipe, I would have offered some advice a long time ago. He just hadn’t given it much thought or put the time in to look at the options; but being busier with work this year he was starting to see it as a chore on weekdays.

Options for installing a water system for your garden

Below I will explore a few options if you want to save time walking around the garden with a watering can this year. All of the options have the added benefit of having a positive impact on the environment, as they save water in different ways.

Leaky Pipe

As I personally use this product myself, it would be silly not to suggest using Leaky Pipe. It is superb at watering medium to very, very large areas for most (if not all) watering purposes at ground level. The best thing about the Leaky Pipe system is that the porous hose can be installed at root level; meaning there is no wasted water due to evaporation.

The network of cables can be placed as deep as you need, but typically up to six inches under the surface in case access is needed. They can also be placed on the surface and then covered by bark/mulch.

Water drip system

This is the system I had in place until Leaky Pipe came along. It works on the same principle but deposits water directly where the plant is via dripper heads. For this reason I find it is better suited for potting plant gardens where there is less need for a long porous pipe; whereas my own garden is made up of flowerbeds and a vegetable plot.

DIY water butt system

If the hard work of installing an environmentally friendly water system appeals to you, you could do no better than to check out this guide from Vertical Veg. I think this is perfect for small gardens or those on a balcony, but there is a lot of hard work and research to do in order to make this the perfect watering system for your garden.

Automation – save more time

The whole reason you are doing this is to save time, so rather than having to be at home and remembering to switch the tap on and off; you should consider investing in a timer once you are happy with your set-up.

Initially I would manually turn the tap on myself, making sure to check the moisture levels so that in the future I would know how long to leave the system watering.