The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Rockweler Rockgardens
When speaking of the proper means of applying water, however, I do not refer to either the watering can or a hose with the usual garden nozzle. The former takes too much time, and the latter, with any nozzle I have ever used, applies water so rapidly that it will begin to run on the surface before the soil is saturated clear through. But it is a simple matter to provide a mistlike spray which will saturate the driest soil through and through without spattering mud on the smallest leaves or the most delicate blossoms, or causing the soil to run out from the most precarious rock crevices. There is a special type of greenhouse irrigation nozzle which applies the water in this fine mistlike spray. If this type of nozzle is substituted for the ordinary nozzles in a portable irrigating outfit, the rock garden can be watered with the utmost thoroughness and safety whenever necessary. Such a watering will last two or three times as long as one given with the ordinary watering can or hose nozzle. One of the irrigation concerns also manufactures a short brass tube fitted with a hose coupling at one end and one of these mist-throwing nozzles at the other—a device copied from a home-made affair which I hit upon some years ago in endeavoring to find a suitable method for watering tuberous begonia seeds, which are like fine pepper. I always use one of these nozzles for watering all fine seedlings or delicate plants. The hose, equipped with this nozzle attachment, may be supported in one position and left for a long time without any danger of overwatering.
For a large rock garden, however, a portable irrigating out- fit of the nozzle-line type, with greenhouse nozzles in place of the ordinary garden or lawn nozzles, will be found the watering system par excellence. It is supported on metal rods which may be pushed down anywhere along the garden path or between stones without disturbing the growing plants, and it may be set up or taken down in a few moments.
