Do you need a new water hose or do you need to try these simple directions to get the kinks and leaks out of your life? Watering plants and meditation go well together unless you have to constantly stop and unkink the hose. This is a simple concept and I don’t want to insult anyone, but I have noticed that a lot of people just never thought about it. Read on.
I find it annoying to have to stop and pull the kinks out of the hose but there is a reason for the kinks and there is an easy way to rectify the problem. So, I’m watering the plants, I have my mind out of gear enjoying solitude and quiet and the freaking water stops coming out of the hose. I turn and look.
The reason that the hose kinks up is that the hose is twisted. It gets twisted when we turn and move about while using it. This is natural. Some hoses have a stripe down one side. I used to wonder what that stripe was and then one day I slapped my forehead—“It’s got that line to help me get the twists out. Duh.”
So, now when I start getting kinks in hoses, I gently pull the hose out in a straight line, twisting against the kinks as I go. As the hose is untwisted the kinks disappear by themselves. And that’s all there is to it. Here’s the same hose after I untwisted it:
With that problem solved, I find that I need to tell the others who use this particular hose that if they are going to bend it to stop the flow of water, to do it somewhere besides the same place close to the user end. This habit will quickly break down the cording in the hose and cause the bend to become chronic and aggravating. This is a good and expensive hose which has been compromised by “hose abuse.” Oh, Well.
The next thing is leakage. If the hose is leaking at the faucet (hose bib), don’t over-tighten it with pliers, but check the washer instead. A worn washer is the cause of a hose/faucet connection 99% of the time. Washers are cheap and easy to replace; just use a screwdriver or something like that to pry out the old one and then stuff in a new one. It will last for a year or two. I have seen lots of good hoses discarded for this reason and I have seen many instances where there was no washer at all in the fitting. The same thing applies if your hose nozzle is squirting more water on you than on your plants. Check it out.
One other tip—When you get a new hose, unroll it carefully instead of just pulling it out of the roll that it comes in. This will keep the hose from being twisted from the start.
I wrote a related article some time back about how to use your hose to fertilize your plants with a syphonex. If you have a lot of ornamentals to care for, this will be a tremendous help.
Happy Gardening
johntheplantman--Gardening 
Very cool info on hoses. Thank you.
When the weather gets warm in summer, I sometimes leave the hose out along the driveway in the heat.
That helps, Tony. We should make it clear, though, that it does not do to leave a hose in the sun with the nozzle closed and the water on. It will explode when the sun heats up the water. They told me that when I was a kid. I thought it would be cool to try and see if that was true. it was.
Oh my! I did not consider that. I must try it now!
After fighting for years with the cheap plastic hoses my ex-husband was so fond off I bought rubber hoses when I became the decision maker. I have had enough of them to reach from the front to the back of my yard and the have held up well for twelve years. No kinks.
Well, Karin, that goes to support something my Uncle John used to say: “It only costs a hell of a lot more to go first class.”