5 Things That Make Watering Stop Being a Chore

The pick

Orbit ProFlo Mechanical Timer

$19.99 on Amazon

Every wifi timer eventually loses the network, mid-heatwave, while you are away. A mechanical dial timer has one moving part and no firmware. You turn it to 30 minutes, the water stops at 30 minutes, and it does that for years on the same tap. This one has the metal inlet collar that the all-plastic timers are missing - that collar is the part that usually splits by the second season.

Check it fits your tap thread, and keep the washer it ships with.

The pick

Rain Bird Landscape & Garden Drip Kit

$62.83 on Amazon

Overhead watering wets foliage, and wet foliage at dusk is how you get blight, mildew and rust. Drip puts the water in the soil where the roots are, uses roughly half the volume for the same result, and does it while you are doing something else. Rain Bird is the irrigation company your municipal parks department buys from; the kit has the line, emitters and fittings for a bed of any normal size, and every part is replaceable at a hardware store.

Pair it with the timer above and the whole bed becomes hands-off.

The pick

AcuRite Magnifying Rain Gauge

$5.97 on Amazon

Everything you read says an inch of water a week. Almost nobody measures it, so almost everybody is either drowning their beds or running them dry and blaming the weather. This one has a magnifying strip up the front so the first half-inch reads huge - you can check it from the porch without kneeling in a wet bed. It costs less than one dead tomato plant.

A straight-sided tin under the sprinkler does the same job for free, if you would rather.

The pick

BoArt Solid-Brass Quick Connect Set

$15.28 on Amazon

Threading a hose onto a tap while holding a sprinkler is a small annoyance that repeats a hundred times a season, and small repeated annoyances are what actually stop people watering. Push-fit connectors turn it into a click. This set is solid brass - the plastic ones crack at the collar and then leak at the one joint you cannot easily replace - and six connectors covers every hose end, tap, sprinkler and wand at once.

Fit one to everything at the same time; a half-converted system is worse than none.

The pick

Dramm One Touch Rain Wand, 30"

$32.99 on Amazon

Containers, hanging baskets, seed trays and new transplants all want a gentle soak at the base, and a thumb over a hose end does not do that. Dramm has made greenhouse wands since 1941 and this is the one professional growers actually use: a full-flow rose head that waters seedlings without washing them out of the soil, and a thumb valve at the handle so the water stops between pots.

The shut-off valve at the handle is the part that matters. Do not skip it.