I love gardening. I love watering my flowers in the morning. I love wandering around checking on things, deadheading a rose here, eating a tomato off the vine there, and generally behaving like the plants and I are all coworkers starting our shift together.
What I do not love is dragging a 100-foot rubber hose around the yard.
And I especially do not love putting it away.
There are people in this world who finish watering, walk back to the spigot, and neatly coil their garden hose into a perfect little circle.
I am not one of those people.
I have accepted this about myself.
I could probably learn. I could install one of those cute hose holders and develop a whole system. I could stand there looping the hose around my arm like someone who has nowhere else to be.
But, A: I’m busy.
And B: I just am not that person.
So when we moved to Storybook Hill and suddenly I had gardens and roses and dahlias and approximately seven thousand things I’d decided needed my personal attention, I knew watering had to be easy.
Because I know myself well enough by now to understand that if something has too many steps, eventually I’m going to stop doing it.
Enter the retractable hose reel.
Apparently I needed a giant retractable garden hose
The one I use is from Giraffe Tools, and the entire premise is beautifully simple.
It’s staked in to the ground.
I pull the hose out.
I water my stuff.
I give it a little tug.
AND THE HOSE PUTS ITSELF AWAY.
That’s it.
No wrestling. No winding. No giant pile of green rubber lying in the grass because Future Katy can deal with it.
Giraffe’s retractable models lock at different lengths and automatically retract and layer the hose back inside the housing. Depending on the model, they currently offer hose lengths from 65 to 155 feet.
GO WITH THE 5/8″ HOSE. We made the mistake of ordering the 1/2″ at our last house and the pressure was limp at best.
This is the kind of technology I can get behind.
We have sent people to space. Surely I shouldn’t still have to coil my own hose.
The hose I use: Giraffe Tools Retractable Garden Hose Reel
SHOP THE HOSE →
I will always choose the thing that makes the good habit easier
This is probably the bigger reason I love it.
I’ve stopped trying to become the person who will suddenly enjoy doing things the hard way.
I want to garden.
I don’t particularly want to manage gardening equipment.
Those are two different hobbies.
If I want myself to do something consistently, I make the thing as easy as possible to do.
I do this everywhere in my life.
I own a Keurig because I’m the only person in my house who drinks coffee.
I keep things where I actually use them instead of where they’re “supposed” to go.
And I have a garden hose that reels itself back up because there is absolutely no version of my future in which I become a woman who lovingly coils 100 feet of rubber hose every night.
She isn’t coming.
We’ve waited long enough.
Is a retractable hose reel necessary?
Of course not.
Neither are half the things I love.
You can buy a perfectly functional garden hose for considerably less money and wind it up yourself for the rest of your natural life.
But this is exactly what Things I Love is about.
I’m interested in the little things that remove friction from my life.
Things that make something I already love easier, prettier, calmer, or more enjoyable.
And for me, this is one of them.
Because when I walk outside and notice that the dahlias look thirsty, I don’t have to think about dragging out the hose and dealing with the mess afterward.
I pull.
I water.
I tug.
It disappears.
Ten out of ten. No notes.
Except perhaps that I now want one anywhere on this property where water comes out of a wall.
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