Getting The Garden Ready For Summer

With summer fast approaching garden watering methods and systems will save you hours of valuable time. We are going to take a look at some of the best options, the cheapest options, as well as some of the most environmentally friendly ways to get the garden watering done hassle free.

Standard hose pipe for garden watering

Using a hosepipe with mains water is one of the cheapest ways to go about watering your garden with a sprayer nozzle, that said, if you’re on a water meter it isn’t all that cheap! This isn’t the friendliest method for the environment either and of course, it is pretty convenient for spot picking what we want to water. Bare with us though, there are far more comprehensive systems before you dart off to use this garden watering method.

There is a very minimal investment with this method, a £20 hose pipe and a spray connector is all you need. If you’re looking for the more environmentally friendly, cheap long term though, or easier then please read on.

Sprinkler system connected to a hosepipe

Whilst a sprinkler is really easy there are two huge problems. The first one being the amount of water that’s lost through evaporation and that might be costly if you are on a meter as we previously mentioned but also if you forget to turn it off or move it in time you can waterlog your grass areas. We’ve all done it before; walked away for half an hour and got distracted by the kids and come back to find the grass soaked!

Cost wise this is one of the best ways to water the garden, and in fact saying that, if you pick the best time to water the garden you can also really cut down on the water wastage. The other great thing about a sprinkler is it can be great fun for the kids too.

Keeping a water butt and a watering can

There are two great things about a water butt; firstly you can save money from the water you collect off your roof but also, you can incorporate watering the garden into your exercise routine in the evening. This is a great way to keep in shape whilst achieving something positive too. Exercise that benefits is the best kind there is.

The drawback of course is time, this is where it’s worth keeping a hosepipe handy if you’re low on time or not in the mood; plants need watering every evening in some cases some summer after all!

Using a waterbutt with drip irrigation

My favourite method for watering the garden these days is a DIY drip irrigation kit. Drip irrigation is a little investment and a small garden will probably be around £200 but the benefits are you never have to water the garden and even farmers are switching over, a recent study showed it cut water use considerably whilst improving potato crop by 15%. It’s clearly something that we should be trying to take advantage of at home too. There are hundreds of sensibly priced kits out there on the market, a simple search brings them all up when looking for DIY drip irrigation systems.