February 24th, 2007
Dramm Revolver
One of the garden chores I hate is watering. I hate having to use up a precious resource (our local lake reservoirs are currently at half their capacity) and I hate the time it takes. I have a drip system in the vegetable garden but everything else I water by hand with either the hose or a watering can.
Around Christmas I dropped by The Great Outdoors and bought myself a little present, the Dramm Revolver. I had used one when volunteering at the Green Classroom and fell in love with it.
The nozzle revolves to spray water nine different ways. The mist setting produces a cloud of mist fine enough to water seedlings. The sprinkle setting is like the fine head on my watering can. Then there are various harder sprays of different shapes, cone, center, flat, angle which make it possible to water in beds of different shapes. There is also a hard jet spray for washing out the bird bath and cleaning off rocks and a bubbly soaker to leave on the ground next to tree or large bush while I’m doing other chores.
This week temperatures soared into the 80s and I decided to use my new toy. I had so much fun. I was delighted with two other features. First, I can shut the water off at the nozzle end instead of running back to turn it off at the faucet. That makes it so much easier to stop and move the hose around without wasting water or soaking myself. I feel that I must be dealing with the some monstrous descendent of the same hose Karel Capek describes in The Gardener’s Year.
“One would think that watering a little garden is quite a simple thing, especially if one has a hose. It will soon be clear that until it has been tamed a hose is an extraordinarily evasive and dangerous beast, for it contorts itself, it jumps, it wriggles, it makes puddles of water, and dives with delight into the mess it has made; then it goes for the man who is going to use it and coils itself round his legs…”
Second, the Dramm Revolver has a little widget that flips to keep nozzle open (like at a gas pump) so that my hand doesn’t get tired squeezing the lever. It’s solid and sturdy. This was $10 very well spent.
by M Sinclair Stevens
February 24th, 2007
I love the quote. Glad to hear your watering experience wasn’t quite as stressful.
Glad to meet you, Amy. Carol at May Dreams Gardens is encouraging everyone to read Karel Capek’s “The Gardener’s Year” and blog our reviews. It’s one of my favorite books. If you can’t find a copy of it, you should check out Carol’s Garden Blogger’s Book Club Newsletter. All of us enjoy sharing our thoughts on our favorite garden books with each other. — mss
February 25th, 2007
My mother bought me something similar a year ago, and I LOVE it. It makes watering and tool cleaning chores much easier.
February 25th, 2007
The Dramm Revolver looks pretty interesting – I have a bunch of attachments, including a watering wand, but usually use nothing but my thumb to turn the water into a spray or sprinkle.
This would probably be easier on my joints.
My brand-new non-kink hose is not non-kink, but the one it replaced had several tiny breaks at just the right spots to spray water at elbow and knee height, so it is an improvement.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
February 26th, 2007
We have those handy little guns on all of our hoses. I love them… They’re especially useful for washing the dogs.