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Hose Pipes are Not Evil - Discuss!

NollieNollie Posts: 7,490
in The potting shed
Save Water! Don’t use your hosepipe, use a watering can! 

Well sorry but that’s utter rubbish. Hosepipes are not evil, wasteful things, they are inanimate objects subject to your will and your whim.

You can use just as much water by using a watering can, sometimes more. Try counting how long you need to fill a can with the hose and see if you are as long pointing a hose directly at the base of a plant instead. If I use the hose instead of a can, I definitely skimp on the watering. I know I’m meant to count to 30 to get to the 10L that shrub needs, but I find my arm drifting off to the next plant way before that.

Hoses are a useful moving water supply that you can drag down the bottom end of your garden and use to fill cans there, they are not ‘wasteful’ in and of themselves. If you have mobility/lifting difficulties they are essential.

Now, if you fit a sprinkler attachment and wastefully waft it about or use a lawn sprinkler for hours on end, that’s different. Why not a hose sprinkler ban rather than a hosepipe ban?

Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,744
    during a hosepipe ban, you can use a hose to fill a watering can, but you CAN'T use it to syphon your bathwater.
    Devon.
  • JacquimcmahonJacquimcmahon Posts: 979
    Ok Hostafan that’s just nuts!😜 at least here in Paris the ban is either ok to water garden or not ok… regardless of implement used. Using “ grey” water is clearly defined as ok, but onus on the user to prove necessity and that you are not simply filling the bath to get around the ban!  
    Marne la vallée, basically just outside Paris 🇫🇷, but definitely Scottish at heart.
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,143
    Hostafan1 said:
    during a hosepipe ban, you can use a hose to fill a watering can, but you CAN'T use it to syphon your bathwater.
    So presumably I could use my hose to fill my 4 empty water butts
    Never thought of that - thanks :)

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 10,185

    Nollie said:
    Now, if you fit a sprinkler attachment and wastefully waft it about or use a lawn sprinkler for hours on end, that’s different. Why not a hose sprinkler ban rather than a hosepipe ban?
    Because you don't wash your car/windows/driveway, fill up swimming pools, paddling pools, hot tubs etc, or top up a pond using a sprinkler. Have you seen the amount of people who just leave a hose running while they wash the car? Or use a pressure washer just to rinse the soap off?

    Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 29,857
    As long as it's not leaky and the connections are good a hose pipe is much more efficient than a can.

    We are currently restricted to watering between 8pm to 8 am which is fine.  While I've been incapacitated by the new knee OH has been in charge of watering.  I have seep hoses set up in beds that need uniform watering a sprinkler set up to be attached to cover the pots in my nursery corner so he just has to attach them to the hose pipe as as per schedule.

    I do other pots such as the citrus and baby cannas and all my hostas, fuchsias and mints using a spray gun on a hose pipe.    What does he do?  Manfully walks round using a 15l watering can and water from the butts.  Takes hours.   When he's not looking I do it properly for the pots he skimps on.

    Upshot?  All butts empty so when a full hosepipe ban comes we'll have nothing left.

    The only bright thing is that he can now lift the 4 older butts up onto breeze blocks so I can get a watering can under the tap at the bottom and use all the water - when/if we get some rain.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,744
    Pete.8 said:
    Hostafan1 said:
    during a hosepipe ban, you can use a hose to fill a watering can, but you CAN'T use it to syphon your bathwater.
    So presumably I could use my hose to fill my 4 empty water butts
    Never thought of that - thanks :)
    you can indeed fill a water butt with a hose. 
    I'm not sure if you can leave a watering can filling up with a hose and " forget " it for while, but none of us would consider such a thing.
    Devon.
  • FireFire Posts: 18,146
    edited July 2022
    It's true that hoses are not just for gardening.

    I've never seen any injunction against using grey water. Surely you can use a hose for whatever you want if it isn't attached to a fresh water tap?!

    I do get bored with a hose and probably do move on too fast when watering pots. And it does strike me how long a hose does take to fill up a watering can, incomparison. But I do leave the hose at the base of new plants while I do other gardening.

    Having a small garden, I won't really need to use a hose, but having a bad back, I find cans really hard to use.
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,497
    Until people in the "Western" world have to walk for miles just to fill a bucket with some muddy water to actually drink, we will continue to waste this precious resource.
    Not exactly a promising scenario for the future.
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,744
    during a hose pipe ban, it's also, bizarrely , perfect legal to just leave your outside tap running 24 7
    Devon.
  • FireFire Posts: 18,146
    edited July 2022
    They just try and draw a line to limit water use. It has to be arbitary at some point (as with covid lock down restrictions). If people stop filling paddling pools and washing their cars and cut down on baths, then it might be enough to get us through August.

    It's the dying trees, fires and dying rivers that worries me most.
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