Fountain of Fun, Or Snake in the Grass?

A good hose is to a busy gardener what a good knife is to a serious chef. It pays to invest in quality, and it demands a lot of care if you want it to endure more than a summer or two.

Steve McCully still owns -- and uses -- the black rubber hose from Sears that his dad gave him 20 years ago. He keeps it empty of water, coiled and out of the sun when he's not using it. Leaving a hose pressurized, even with a strong nozzle at the end, will cause "sun bubbles" and weaken the hose walls over time, he said.

"If you take care of them, they'll last a long time," said McCully, a sort of grand master of hoses thanks to his job as garden manager at Behnke Nursery in Potomac. He estimates that nearly 1,000 feet of them snake around the 6.2-acre property. The Behnke hoses are like the ropes on a sailing ship, and McCully is the exacting skipper.

"I give someone a C-plus for this one," McCully said, stopping to inspect a hose coiled semi-neatly against a fence post.

McCully also sells hoses, from an entry-level vinyl mesh ($28.50 for the 50-footer) to the high-end, mostly rubber Dramm, available for the first time this year in purple, orange, red and other designer colors ($64.99).

The No. 1 request from customers: "They want one that's not going to kink up," McCully said. "They all kink, but the rubber is the key. The more rubbery, the less they kink."

He recommends a pinch test. "If you feel that thicker wall, that's a good sign," he said. "That's what we look for, and we abuse a lot of hoses here."