We recently purchased a house in an affordable area, or so we thought, until our first water bill. The house came with an irrigation system that we hadn’t had time to investigate since we were so busy moving in. Once we checked, we found out that the previous owners had the system running two times a day!! A ridiculous amount given that the landscape was mulched and, really, unless you want green grass in a desert, who would water that much?

Since I’m as budget conscious as they come (my husband says cheap), I try to do my part to recycle and conserve energy and water. With this in mind, I decided to rethink how we were watering. I must say that some of my contributions to water conservation were met with scorn from my hubby. He’s a lawn guy, which means he wants our lawn to look like a golf course. This, by the way, is difficult to do even watering twice a day since the front slopes down to a walkway are actually getting watered instead of the grass. Hence, we have a yellowing area where the lawn slopes. This is one of the reasons why a soaker hose would be handy.

In the interest of compromise, I ran over to my local Lowe’s hardware, which is my go-to “she-shop” for everything. While looking in the garden center, I spied a soaker kit made by Flexon. The box said it contained 100 feet of soaker hose along with a twenty-piece connector set. It promised to build stronger, healthier root systems, which is what my hubby wants, and its energy efficiency and water conservation of up to 70% is a big bonus for me! Oh, and I need to mention it was totally affordable and didn’t break the bank.

So why a soaker hose instead of a more traditional form of irrigation like sprinklers or hand watering? Soaker hoses make it easier to customize your watering needs in the landscape and garden. In order to get the sloped area of our lawn green again, my husband had taken to watering by hand, a huge waste of time given that most of the water simply winds up as runoff rather than thoroughly soaking into the ground and penetrating the roots. A soaker hose, however, not only alleviates this issue but can save both time and money.

Small pores throughout the hose allow water to slowly seep into the soil, so no water is wasted by evaporation or runoff and gets delivered exactly where it needs to – directly to the roots. Since they’re normally available in a roll that you cut into desired lengths, soaker hoses allow you to customize your watering needs, fitting into any area with ease. And because these hoses remain stationary, there’s no need in dragging out the hose every time you water the lawn or garden. Just turn the water on and let it go.

The Flexon Soaker Kit is an environmentally friendly solution that I think both my husband and I can live with. Now I can finally get him to come back inside to help me unpack boxes again. That is until he finds another way to avoid working in the house”¦