Every gardener, from beginners to life-long experts, wants to create a beautiful outdoor space, but with environmental issues and sustainability at the top of the nation’s agenda it is important to water wisely and save water in your garden.

Implementing Hozelock’s Watering Wisdom tips will not only help the environment, but it will stop you from over-watering and help your garden to flourish, giving you stronger, healthier plants. You can even save money on your water bills!

Hozelock’s comprehensive product range, from hoses to automatic watering systems, offers effective watering solutions for any type of garden.

• Water your plants low down, at the roots, so that more water gets into the soil, avoid spraying the leaves to decrease the risk of leaf scorch.
• Water at the start or end of the day when the sun isn’t so hot, less water will evaporate, and watering in peak sunshine can harm your plants. Make it a morning or evening task. Or – we even have a timer that does exactly this by sensing when the sun comes up and goes down – see our Sensor Controllers below.
• Place a potted plant under your hanging baskets when watering, so the pot can soak up the excess water that falls from the basket!
• Try to water your plants thoroughly but less frequently to avoid wasting water and to encourage the plant to grow deeper roots.
• Add homemade compost or well-rotted manure around your plants to hold water rather than it running away.
• Install as many water butts as possible to harvest rain water – which is better for your plants than tap water.

• Aerate your lawn with small holes (simply spike with a garden fork) to allow for better movement of water and air, this prevents water logging but also helps in periods of drought.
• Remove weeds from your pots and borders as they will be using water unnecessarily.
• To check if you need to water or not, look at the soil about a spade-deep down. Only water if it’s dry, if it’s already damp there is no need.
• Reuse grey water from the house (bath water/washing up water), soaps won’t cause any harm to your plants, though you should avoid using this on any edibles.
• Leave your lawn to go brown, it will recover once it rains again. Before a drought, let the grass grow longer to improve shade and give your lawn a good soaking (rather than a small sprinkle of water) to encourage root growth.
• Prioritise young plants and seedlings – perennials and shrubs should be established enough to recover after a period without rain.
• Add a layer of mulch – bark chips, wood chips or even lawn clippings – to your borders to hold moisture and to help stop water evaporating quickly.

Adjust your sprinkler so that it only waters plants, flowerbeds and border, rather than lawns/paths as required. On our Plus and Pro Sprinklers, the red rings can be used to adjust the area covered. On the Rectangular Sprinkler Pro you can close off up to 6 of the jets to adjust the width as well.

Run your sprinkler with a manual timer – it will automatically turn the sprinkler off after the amount of time you set, so you don’t have to remember to turn it off. Saves water every time and avoids a water-logged lawn if you forget it was on!

Our spray guns have a flow control which allows you to reduce the amount of water used. By getting closer to each plant and using a lower flow rate, you can water more accurately to where it is needed and use as much as 50% less water. Pictured above, is the Multi Spray Pro, the flow control is the red dial on the rear of the gun that can be easily adjusted down to a 50% flow rate.

The Jet spray pattern on our guns is great for cleaning, but not ideal for watering – the higher pressure causes water to bounce off materials like bark chips and other mulches and only some of it will get to your plant. Try using the Fine Rose or Aerated settings to apply exactly the same amount of water, but with a gentler spray pattern. This will keep more of the water near the plant, where you want it. Read more about our spray patterns here.

AquaStop connectors have a water-stop valve to stop water rushing out when you disconnect a watering tool. It’s also a time saving feature – you don’t have to go back to the tap, turn it off, change tool, turn it back on.

Dripping or leaking connectors can waste a significant amount of water. Our connectors are designed to be leak-free but if a connector is leaking the O Rings on your watering tool may have perished over time or become damaged. Replacing the O Rings can quickly fix this issue, simply remove the old one and replace to quickly repair any drips you find.

Check your hose isn’t loose inside the connector. With the water off, unscrew the grey nut on the bottom of your connector and push the hose firmly into the connector as far as it will go, then re-tighten the nut. If while doing that, you notice the hose is torn or damaged, this can also cause leaks. In that case you can cut a few centimetres off with good scissors, before retightening.

Run a soaker hose around your plants, to avoid having to water them by hand. The hose slowly releases water directly near the roots and can even be run off a water butt. Plus it can be discreetly buried into your flowerbed!

The Flowmax collect water butt pump allows the utilisation of rain water collected in a water butt to be used to water around the garden. Simply the drop the pump into your water butt and attach a hose and spray gun to use the recycled water, much easier and quicker than a watering can!

Automatic Watering systems deliver more controlled watering directly to the roots, reducing water wastage through evaporation or inaccurate watering. Not only does this save water, it could also save you money on your water bills. Help your plants by putting drippers and sprinklers close to the roots and in the shade of leaves, so your plants take up more water, the soil remains moist and evaporation will be lower.

Delivering water direct to the roots, can be difficult as the water often sprays onto leaves and foliage, resulting in a large amount of water evaporating into the air. Our Universal drippers allow you to adjust the flow and to target water to exactly where you need it to go. No wastage spraying over the leaves and you can control the amount of water each dripper receives.

Our Cloud controller app allows you to remotely pause and adjust watering schedules and includes a local weather summary and push notifications to keep you informed about changes to weather patterns. So if it starts to rain unexpectedly you can turn off your schedule, and save your water from the tap, wherever you are!

The best time to water your garden, to avoid leaf scorch and excessive evaporation, is at sunrise or sunset. The Hozelock Sensor Controller will take care of this for you, as they include a daylight sensor that automatically adjusts your daily watering schedule to start at sunrise and sunset.

Gradually water your indoor plants with Aquasolo with a slow release of water directed straight into the soil. Aquasolo can also be used to provide hungry plants with liquid feed and is great for greenhouse and house plants alike.

The Growbag Waterer features a large capacity 15 litre water reservoir, perfect for when you’re on holiday, water is delivered directly to the plants roots through unique capillary watering spikes, prevents drought and minimise water wastage.

The Evolution Sprayer has an 11cm long reach nozzle ideal for misting water to houseplants that are in difficult to reach areas. For example if you have a houseplant on a top shelf, you can poke the nozzle right into the plant pot to ensure you are targeting water in the right place and not spilling it all over the shelf!

Other Resources

There is plenty more advice available online to help you save water in the garden and in your home.

Water Wise – https://www.waterwise.org.uk/save-water/

International World Water Day – 22nd March – https://www.worldwaterday.org/learn