They don't last forever and do get clogged. If used on top of soil the heat of the sun tends to bake them/shrink them. As mentioned above, i would give it a good soaking for a few days. Rather than toss them and replace with new, i tapped new holes in mine with a small nail once in place and found i could use them for spot watering new plantings. Works a bit like a dribbler. If a hole ended up on the top side, i just covered with a bit of mulch to direct the tiny fountain down to the soil rather than a mini airborne fountain. Often they never return to the perfect all over 'sweating' like new ones. The drip systems are a good investment being able to put the water exactly where you need it rather than all along an entire run. Consider it in a future plan but now give a cleaning a try to use what you have.

Those are gardening staples and frankly, so expensive they should kiss you. Invest in a pair of good metal snips. Take your old hangers, the ones that multiply in your closet? Snip the two shoulder points off of them and you have garden staples as long as you like. Dee, that totally depends upon your water pressure, your length of hose, and how much water you want your roses to get. Remember, that with any circumstance, watering deeping is important. If you don't, particularly if you mulch, where the mulch will soak up a lot of the water? You promote shallow root growth. So plan to really soak the recommended inches down into the soil. I mulch so heavily that not only do I get very interesting, anerobic fungus, but I leave my 150' hoses on overnight sometimes. I wouldn't trade in my soakers for anything. Ok, maybe more of certain plants, but I'd really have to think about the dehydration my gardens would definitely suffer! :) Christine

I have a set-up as follows: Short hose from bib to 4-valve manifold w/ hose-to-pipe thread fitting at the manifold intake ("always on" - the bib is always turned on, and flow control is done at the valves) At the out going side of each valve I have pipe-to-hose fittings to attatch 3/4" soaker hoses and drip system conduit as needed. The valves are attached to a timer, which runs off an outlet in my garage and has wires running discreetly out-of-the-way to the manifold. When winter approaches I undo each hose from the manifold and un-cap their ends to drain and allow for any flexing/freezing. I just leave them lying in place. I pull the wiring (which is connected/disconnected w/ twist caps) and take the valve manifold into the garage near my water heater/interior wall. This is the expensive part of the system and since it's above ground you don't want it freezing/breaking the valves. When spring comes I bring out the manifold and re-attach all the hoses/wires and test the system. Been working great for 3 years now. Have only had to replace soakers from mineral build up. Got all the parts, including the manifold from HomeDepot: (1) 4-valve manifold (5) 1" to 3/4" pipe converters (1 inflow, 4 outflow) ('cuz it's nearly impossible to find 1" Pipe to 3/4" hose fittings) Also seems like some of these may have been slip converters that I had to cement in place, but that will depend on the manifold you have. (1) 3/4" MPT - 3/4" FHT adapter (Male Pipe Thread to Female Hose Thread, this hooks the female inflow pipe thread on the manifold to the male hose end coming from the hose attached to the bib) (4) 3/4" FPT - 3/4" MHT Adapters (Female Pipe Thread to Male Hose Thread to convert the outgoing valve pipes to hose threads) (1) 1-way suck-back preventer to go anywhere between the bib and manifold, just a precaution... The best thing about the whole thing is that it's flexible. I can use soakers or drip systems, multi-zoned and they're all on timers. Nearly totally carefree, automated watering. I do have "Y" at the bib with a standard garden hose so I can hand water trouble spots if I need to... but once I have those identied I try to get a dripper or a soaker to that spot so I don't have to worry about it anymore. You can get hose timers now days, but they run on batteries - so if the batteries die, you may not know it until your yard starts dying, and I don't find them nearly as easy to program as the standard sprinkler timers (I tried this route first, but I'm much happier with the system I have now).

Just spent a lot of time and money on soaker hoses. In the past have had the same trouble of pressure making slits in soaker hoses and shooting water in the air. Thanks to this board,read that soakers are not to have pressure over 20 to 30 lbs. Now I have been bursting hoses for years,as the instructions on the soaker hoses only say to not use high pressure,now I use 50 lb of water pressure,(this cant be viewed as high pressure,as that is the pressure of most homes) You would think that the idiots that make them would warn us of the pressure trouble. Once you find out about it,non of the box stores sell the regulators. I called the factory and they were not aware on the low pressure. So I called Swan hoses and they told me that their hoses have a restrictor washer that cuts down the pressure. Now I asked how could a washer with a small hose cut down on pressure,as it would only take a little longer to build up the pressure. So not really believing them,I punched a Swan and connected it up and put my end of hose pressure gauge on it and guess what,0 pressure. Then it finally hit me,the disc only lets in the same amount of water the hose distributes which means 0 pressure and will last for years. Now I tried using the disc in one of the other that doesn't use the discs and it did cut the pressure down from 50 to 30 lbs. Surely all manufactures will go to the discs. Another advantage of the disc is if you do get a leak the disc will restrict the amount of wasted water.