Rose gardeners often find watering their roses to be complicated and time consuming. The simple installation of a soaker hose or drip irrigation system with a timer can make your life so much easier. Whichever method you choose both cost effective projects can be purchased and installed in only a weekend.

The soaker hose is the simplest to purchase and install. Measure the length of your rose bed taking care to make allowances for any winding the soaker hose will do between your plants. You should also take note of the distance from the hose spigot to your rose bed. If you don’t want this area watered you’ll need a length of regular garden hose to help extend the soaker hose to your rose bed. Purchase your soaker hose, basic battery operated timer and if desired some black plastic ground stakes to hold your soaker hose in place.

If you’re going with drip irrigation you’ll need a few more parts. The basic building block of a drip irrigation system is the length of black plastic hose that’s found in your local home improvement store’s irrigation department. All home improvement stores have some version of drip irrigation supplies. My husband and I have found the line at Home Depot to be the most user friendly of the lines we’ve tried. The majority of the drip irrigation lines have a free pamphlet in front of the display. This pamphlet will tell you each and every piece you need to connect your drip irrigation hose to your water supply and then also describes the variety of drippers, bubblers and sprayers you can use to customize your drip irrigation system.

There are pros and cons to each system. Both systems can be set up with the same automatic timer, so that is equal. The soaker hose sets up the quickest and costs the least. However, the drip irrigation can be better customized for less water waste, it allows you to cover a longer distance without loosing water pressure the further you get from the hose spigot and once set up can easily have additions and changes made to the system over the years. The cons are the drip irrigation costs more to install and takes more time to set up.

Whichever watering method you choose, you’ll be sure to notice a decrease in your water bill and an increase in your free time. As a rose gardener the pruning, weeding and other garden chores can seem never ending. An automatic watering system can make our lives easier and afford us a bit more time to stop and actually smell the roses.