If you read the how-to article that I wrote about building your own watering wands, you saw that I used the “shower heads” off of the old wands that I threw away. One of the heads gave a nice soft flow, it was the purple one, but the other two did not. They put out a rather hard, coarse spray pattern and I quickly got tired of fixing the soil in the pots all of the time that became disturbed while water. I tried cutting back on the valve but that only resulted in the shower becoming more of a stream, causing more soil disruption. I had heard good things about the Dramm Redhead so I thought I would give it a try. I hope it works out as I bought three of them. I shopped around and found that Greenhouse Megastore on Amazon had the best price, about 10 bucks a piece.
On their website Dramm makes some pretty good claims about this product:
“The 1000PL Redhead water breaker has over 1,000 micro holes that create an ultra-soft flower shower which will not disturb delicate soil or harm tender plants. Use with a Dramm In-Line Hose Filter to prevent clogging. Made in U.S.A. from ABS plastic and stainless steel.”
We’ll see if they live up to the hype. It is a big plus, at least to me, that they are made in America. They also recommend that you use one of their water filters to keep from clogging up the holes. Being the cheap (err, frugal) person that I am an not wanting to pony up the extra $15 dollars for the filter (I would need three) I am gonna use these from Lowes. They are inlet filters for pressure washers and two are included in the pack. You can find them on the isle where the garden hose accutrements are located.
The cost is $5.99, hopefully they will work and that leaves more money for beer.. My only concern is that the mesh will not be fine enough.
“The 1000PL Redhead water breaker has over 1,000 micro holes that create an ultra-soft flower shower which will not disturb delicate soil or harm tender plants. Use with a Dramm In-Line Hose Filter to prevent clogging. Made in U.S.A. from ABS plastic and stainless steel.”
We’ll see if they live up to the hype. It is a big plus, at least to me, that they are made in America. They also recommend that you use one of their water filters to keep from clogging up the holes. Being the cheap (err, frugal) person that I am an not wanting to pony up the extra $15 dollars for the filter (I would need three) I am gonna use these from Lowes. They are inlet filters for pressure washers and two are included in the pack. You can find them on the isle where the garden hose accutrements are located.
The cost is $5.99, hopefully they will work and that leaves more money for beer.. My only concern is that the mesh will not be fine enough.
If your wand does not have hose threads on the end, you will need one of these adapters to attach the Dramm; it came from Lowes, also. Make sure that you get the right size, I needed 3/4 inch pipe to hose.
Comparing the two heads, Dramm on the left, old one on the right, the Dramm definitely has more holes which should yield a finer spray. Take a look at the spray pattern. Dramm on the left, old one on the right, the Dramm seems to have a finer pattern while still delivering a good amount of water.
I decided to try to test each to see how much soil disturbance each would make. I took an American hornbeam that I had in a training pot planted in my standard soil mix. I opened the valve ¾ of the the way and aimed it at the soil approximately 18 inches away, about like I would normally water. Here are the results:
As you can see, the Dramm caused considerably less soil disturbance compared to the old one. Another thing that I noticed is that the pattern is a lot tigher on the Dramm allowing you to get all of the water coming out of the nozzle on the pot unlike the old nozzle that had a lot wider pattern that is much larger than most of the pots that I have. I think that it is gonna be a real asset for watering the trees. I am not real crazy about the plastic construction, time will tell if it will hold up to daily use. I will report back in a couple of months and let you know how it worked out.