Soaker hoses

[Rick Hughes]

One part of my garden is a 55m long wall, behind which is a long planted 'border' (or is it bed)

Behind that is a bank which has Leylandii on it - not my choice and not owned by me. Typical width of flower bed is about 600mm / 24" ...

SWMBO has asked me could we put a soaker hose along bed to make watering easier ? Just interested if anyone has experience of these - they are in 2 types ...weeping porous/permeable soaker hoses ... and perforated 'sprinkler' hoses.

hoses .. I'm guessing are not going to spread water much further than the hose itself ... which could mean very inconsistent watering. Sprinkler may spray it everywhere ...

I have my own underground pressurised storage tank of water - so this is free.

any comments ?

[Nightjar]

>> or

The one I used to have would spread water to about a foot either side, so I needed to make parallel runs a couple of feet apart, but that may vary with soil type. I only used it for a couple of years, to get a new garden established, after which it has coped quite well without any more watering than nature provides. Last Monday's 2 inches deep across the entire garden was a bit of overkill though.

Colin Bignell

[Bob Minchin]

>> or

The weep type are not capable of use at mains pressure - from bitter experience, I've found that after a year or so they give way.

I have replaced with perforated type but I have had to alter the on time to be much shorter to avoid a flood.

Bob

[chrisj.doran%proemail.co.uk]

If you want a cheap experiment, 99p Stores do a 6m soaker hose for, well, you work it out. It says it "sprinkles and soaks", but ever since I bought one it's been too wet to find out exactly what that means and how well it works.

Chris

[fred]

In article , Rick Hughes writes

I installed about a 100m of porous hose split between 2 locations about

6 years ago.

It's the sort of stuff that needs to run a couple of hours to get a decent depth of saturation but the slowish flow means the water has plenty of time to soak in without puddling.

2" is certainly on the limit for width, perhaps a serpentine track will help you there, it's not as if it really wants to run in regimented lines.

I have one run under a hedge, out of the sun, that is as black and flexible as it started. The other stuff has been out and about in beds and it is becoming lighter in shade and more brittle so appears to be reaching the end of its life.

The hedge run is 40 odd metres long and there was a distinct fall off in flow towards the far end when feeding from one end. To overcome this T'd the feed into the middle and now both limbs work equally well. This suggests to me that workable length for each run is about 20m of hose.

Maybe for you 4 sections of border 14m long fed by 20m of serpentine hose each would work. You could use LDPE and barbed fitting to distribute.

If you want to feed the bed you can use a feed dilutor inline with the hose eg:

got my LDPE pipe there too:

On a separate note, on an earlier thread you made some comments about personal health hazards on use of cypermethrin that don't seem to be borne out by the COSHH data, any ideas on the discrepancy?

[Steve Firth]

Oh ghod, a Radio 4 Archers listener. There's nothing wrong with Leylandii, just with lazy buggers who don't maintain hedges. A closely clipped Leylandii hedge is, IMO, a nicer hedge than yew. All hedges go to pot if not managed, Leylandii is no different.

[Phil L]

No experience regarding the hose predicament, but you might experience some problems with the wall if you start soaking this patch regularly. Leylandii are notoriously thirsty, which is why your flower bed is like a dust bowl and they will strip out most of the water you apply, this causes the ground to shrink, if you are continually watering it may cause some heave.

[Rick Hughes]

Here is one such quote ...

"Permethrin is classified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a likely human carcinogen, based on reproducible studies in which mice fed permethrin developed liver and lung tumors.[10] Carcinogenic action in nasal mucosal cells due to inhalation exposure is suspected, due to observed genotoxicity in human tissue samples, and in rat livers the evidence of increased pre-neoplastic lesions raises concern over oral exposure.[11][12]

Studies by Bloomquist et al., 2002[13] suggested a link of permethrin exposure to Parkinson's disease, including very small (per kg.) exposures:"

To me that sounds like something I would be concerned about using, I know that there were a lot of worries about Framers using it for Sheep Dip, and Fish Farmers using it. I suspect it may well now be outlawed for such activities (not sure though)

Squirt a little bit on your greenfly may not be a problem, but if it gets into water sources, not good for you.

When I was involved with Army they used to issue anti tick powder that you covered inside of you combat trousers with to prevent sheep & deer ticks .... I stayed well clear of putting that anywhere near my gonads.

[Rick Hughes]

It's not my hedge so I can't closely clip it .... in fact I had a very irate letter when a did a basic trim of height a few years back.

Now in many places bottom 3' or so is bare .. making for an ugly hedge

[Rick Hughes]

I had thought of stripping out every 3rd Leylandii and planting something else ... replace hedge by stealth. Then once they are established rip out the rest.

[fred]

So no specific citations of it being a neurotoxin as you reported? No UK based special control measures related to human exposure at working concentrations?

The specific conflicts I notice are the exceptionally understated COSHH precautions for the product at the working concentration of 0.1%:

"Personal protection

- Respiratory protection : No special respiratory protection equipment is recommended under normal conditions of use with adequate ventilation.

- Skin protection : No special protection required where adequate ventilation is maintained."

Which seem to fall short of the initial, "evil, evil, evil . . . ! " report (in respect to personal exposure).

However, any specialist knowledge that you may have gratefully received.

[Steve Firth]

You can clip off whatever overhangs your land, so long as you don't keept he clippings.

Did you reply telling the nitwit that if they grow a hedge on a boundary that the neighbour is permitted to maintain the hedge if the owner refuses to do so?

Refer to point about lazy buggers who don't maintain hedges.

Whatever species of hedge they grew, they would be a PITA, even yew needs clipping.

[Rick Hughes]

the first line .... It works by being a Neurotoxin .... very harmful to cats & fish ....

Now to me, that is something I do not want freely used on any land that I live on or near.

Further down it details the US research and advice on it's use ... US seems to be getting concerned about it's use.

But as it is allowable in controlled use - so your call .. I wouldn't want it round my family.

[fred]

Thanks for the link although cypermethrin does have marginally different properties.

In my view a good summary from your link is:

Human exposure

According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, permethrin "has low mammalian toxicity, is poorly absorbed through the skin and is rapidly inactivated by the body. Skin reactions have been uncommon."

If one is forced to control insects in certain circumstances this appears to be one of the more benign forms of control.

[chris French]

You can cut back any of the hedge that is overhanging on your property. If the hedge is on the boundary line that means you can cut back as much as you like.

There now are limits on how high hedge can be (6ft IIRC). Difficult i know if the neighbour is awkward about it, but it can be enforced if neccessary