I had a friend visiting recently, she pointed at a couple pieces of metal I have stuck in the ground and asked why they were there. I’d always wondered if people saw them and what they thought, so I was happy she asked. Three of them are in this photo, although I think they’re fairly hard to see…
This was the first to go in the ground. I forget where I picked it up, it might have been something Andrew gave me. When I pull the hose out into the driveway this one keeps it from traveling into the planting bed.
The next one back is this guy…
When pulling the hose up from the patio, headed to the driveway, I discovered I needed another line of defense.
Sidenote: damn these saxifrage are looking good!
The next one is pretty visible, there at the corner. It’s the first one my friend pointed at.
I resisted putting something here for the longest time, but in real life it blends with the other rusty metal and isn’t as obvious as in these photos.
As seen from the pathway from the patio.
Dragging the hose over to the shade pavilion area isn’t as tricky as it seems.
Until I pull it along the corner of the patio wall surround and the hose wants to come up on the wall and knock things over. This chunky (heavy) piece of metal keeps it from doing so.
Right there at the edge it stands its ground.
Headed down to the patio is this…
I first put in the metal loop and it definitely did the job as far as the hose was concerned, but I tripped on it a couple times because it was a little too stealth. That’s when I added the piece of rock.
No more tripping!
The last exhibit isn’t so much a hose guard, as a hose warning.
Sometimes I take the hose up to the shade pavilion area via the patio step. Sometimes I head to the right…
…and nearly wipe out these small pots.
That’s when these two hose nozzles act as a warning, the hose hits them, they fall over, make noise and I know to stop. The best part is that I dug them up right here in the garden. Some previous gardener(s) here used them and left them behind. Soil, plants, debris buried them. One is even stamped ITALY.
So those are my nontraditional hose guards. What about you, do you have hose guards? Were they designed to be that or are they something else doing double duty?
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