Four Smart Ways to Reuse an Old Garden Hose

As you prep your yard for spring, you may not have any hesitation in throwing out a tough, cracked old hose that has sat all winter, but instead of throwing it out, consider using it elsewhere. your yard. Here are four practical ways to do it.

Stabilization of young plants

If your spring cleaning involves planting a few trees that will (hopefully) grow into large ones, use pieces of old garden hose to attach them to the stakes. Wilson Bros Gardens recommends using old hose nibs for this job instead of store-bought tubing. Make a cut on the side of the hose and wrap it around the tree trunk and its peg so they stay together until the tree is big enough to support itself unaided. The flexibility of the hose will allow the tree to grow without hindering its movement.

Creating chain covers

Whether you use chains for outdoor work or to hold swings in a kids gym, an old slotted hose is great for making the chain more grippy and less dangerous to your fingers. Reader’s Digest recommends threading the chain through one of the open ends of the hose if possible, but if that doesn’t work just cut a hole in the hose so you can wrap it around the metal and then secure with a few zip ties.

Protect blades of all kinds

Before storing your skates for the summer, use the cut hose to make a great, inexpensive blade protector. This way you can also keep your saw blades sharp and protected. In fact, any tools or blades that need to have a sharp edge can be protected in this way, whether in storage or transport.

Make a new kind of hose

One hole in a hose doesn’t necessarily make it useless. One Good Thing by Jillee recommends drilling a few more holes in it to make a soaking hose that you can lay in your garden to provide an impromptu watering system. Using a small drill, make holes along the entire length of the rubber, then screw the hose cap onto the end. Put it at the base of your plants and run it every few days for about 30 minutes for deep watering.

You can also use a piece of perforated hose as a potted watering system by inserting it into the soil of your potted plant. Pour water into the open end to gently water the plant down to the roots.