When I first read this I thought you meant
you used a piece of regular hose between two soakers and thought What a
great
idea!

Yes, that's exactly what I meant...I ran the solid hose from the spigot to
the long rosebed, and couple it onto the end that I leave just barely
peeking out the side of the bed. When I want to use it for regular hose
duties, I can unplug it and screw the sprayer on it. I do have a spare hose,
though, that I can just screw onto one of the five-way spouts, if I want to
just leave it on there full time.

I don't like to leave the hose laying across the yard all the time, because
it is prone to get nicked by the lawn mower, and it kills the grass
underneath, as well as being an obvious sign of water consumption. So I
usually roll it back up on the wheel.

There's two small (six and three) rosebeds by the spigot, and the kit plus a
couple bucks worth of extra hose and connectors made easy work of that.

Although the hose spray nozzles are cheap, it really is worth taking the
time to find a good quality one. I found a really nice one at Home Depot
last year, had three spray nozzles on a card, with all kinds of settings,
for $5.98. And they were heavy duty, to withstand the type of use I give
them. I still think it was a mistaken price, as I saw them for up to $14,
for just one nozzle, but another brand.

You mentioned you had a small area with three roses that isn't on the
soaker...I would suggest checking out the Better Homes and Gardens kit at
Walmart for $14.97, which will give you enough materials to encircle five
roses with soakers. Also, they sell the individual parts, so you can add on
or modify the setup.

You can get an inexpensive adapter to attach the kit setup to your regular
hose, so you're extending the irrigation to the three separate ones.

The kit would probably not be efficient for large beds, because you can buy
systems designed for larger areas, but for small areas like yours and mine,
that are off to themselves, it is perfect.

I thought about the Aqua Cones, and may still do this, for infusing potions
of systemics, phosphorus, and other wettable substances I don't want applied
to the leaves, and to pinpoint the application. I'd use milk jugs but they
are butt ugly, and they'd end up blowing around and looking terrible. I
don't like to waste so much by scattering it where it can't be used by the
roses, and dislike the idea of draining so much fertilizer and chemical
concoctions into the ground to be dispersed into the ecological system.


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