Watering Woes

I've spent most of my summer watering. I've grown weary of arranging hoses and sprinklers and making sure they cover everything in the bed, placing them precariously on tables and whatever else I can find to prop them up on. To say the least, looking at stuff like this kills the aesthetic I'm striving for.

The idea that I could hide this apparatus with something more attractive struck me when I had to replace a broken sprinkler in the vegetable garden on a property I maintain. It had a permanent home in the center of the garden and my first idea was to camoflauge the new sprinkler by putting it inside a pot. It was too big for the one I had on hand though, so I began casting about for another idea. I found some leftover bricks stacked up neatly in the corner of the barn (conveniently left over from the brick walkway project) and Linda Higby, the gardener who works with me on this property, helped me to haul them out. 

 The two of us started playing around with them and Linda  made an outline around the sprinkler. She laid down two courses of bricks and created a little rectangular container for it.

We tweaked it up and left an opening on the side for the hose and elevated the bottom so the sprinkler could oscillate properly.

 Worked like a charm! We both agreed that a brown hose is next on the list, the green one sticks out like a sore thumb.

After doing this project, I was pumped up about trying the idea at home. I decided to place the pot in the center of my vegetable garden and use a small rotating sprinkler instead of an oscillating type. I drew the hose through the hole in the bottom of the pot and propped up the sprinkler on top of a couple old bricks, fitting its edge under the lip of the pot. I wedged in two pieces of wood to hold the hose in place.

Not real attractive, but I hid all of this by stuffing in some black net fabric I had left over from another project.

I added an old wrought iron candle holder to the top to give it some height.

I hid the hose underneath the mulch and as a final touch, potted up a dangly sweet potato vine and stuck it in the center.

That black net isn't quite the look I want, so I think I"ll replace it with mulch.

Not bad for a first try though, and it sure beats the blue plastic tote.