These DIY hose guides are made out of short pieces of rebar with small plastic orange golf balls.
They keep my hose out of the nearby vegetable garden and act as a decorative look to the garden as well.
Do you have something special that you use for hose guides? I do now, thanks to a project that wasn’t supposed to happen for a while.
I love using recycled materials to make useful garden projects. In this case, some old rebar strips and plastic tennis balls got a quick transformation into something that we all need in our gardens – hose guides.
Recycling is a small step that we can take to protect the environment at home.
Hose guides (also called hose guards) come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are purely functional and others are decorative. My easy DIY hose guides combine both functions and best of all – they are a very budget friendly vegetable garden hack.
Why I needed these hose guards
One of my “next year’s” projects ended up being a this year event. I laid 800 square feet of cardboard, newspaper, oak leaves, soil, compost, and garden clippings over the lawn in a part of my back yard in a lasagna style garden bed.
The original intention was to have the grass killed for next year, so that I could till the area and wouldn’t have to remove all that grass by hand.
(after digging 44 hours for my front garden bed to till and aerate the soil, I had had enough of digging for a while!)
Little did I know when I put down everything to kill the grass that it would be workable in just a few months.
I had put in a small vegetable garden earlier in the spring. I called it that, but in reality it was just a small side bed with some crowded vegetables.
I got one ear of corn, some beans, and about 2 weeks worth of peas out of it, as well as a few strawberries that the birds got, and some cucumbers that keep going yellow and turning bitter.
Even though my efforts weren’t very successful, it did make me realize that I, while I love flower gardening, I ADORE vegetable gardening. There is something so satisfying in the knowledge that the food on our table is something I actually grew.
The new veggie garden was planted in June and July, as well as a few plantings this past week in August when I returned from vacation.
Our last frost here in NC is October 27th, I believe, so there is plenty of growing time, and the garden is producing already.
But watering it has become quite an exercise in avoiding the plants at the front of the garden between some of my rows. No matter how careful I am, I seem to trample the plants on the outer edges of the garden with my hose.
I needed hose guides that would keep the hose from damaging my vegetable plants and I wanted them to be somewhat decorative as well.
Making DIY Hose Guides
I looked into purchasing hose guides, and these are great looking decorative ones, but I needed 10 or 12 of them, but the price can add up quickly.
So I made some of my own. They are not as fancy as the store bought kind by any means but I think they will do the trick.
My husband’s friend Tom generously agreed to cut me 12 pieces of 24″ rebar for my DIY hose guides. (not new…he had it laying around and cut it for me for free.) 
I pounded them into the soil today and realized to my horror that they are EXACTLY the same color as my soil. It was an accident just waiting to happen.
I knew I would forget they were there and end up on my face each day in the garden when I tripped over them.
I knew I needed something to alert me to the fact that the rebar is on the edges, so I looked in my craft room and came up with some plastic orange golf balls.
They had small holes in them. I just cut into a group of three to make a larger hole and topped each piece of rebar, and ended up with enough for each row entry.
Once the golf balls were put on the top of the rebar, the whole effect reminds me of large ladybugs just waiting to eat any aphid that eyes my vegetables.
Grand cost to me was 33c for each garden hose guide. Much better than the cost of purchased hose guides, in my book!
Here they are in the garden:
Now my only problem is what my two large German Shepherd doggies will think when they see those 10 orange balls sitting there on the edge of the “THAT’S MINE!! AREA, OUT!!”
There is only so much that Ashleigh and Sassy can do to obey. This may be a bit too much of a temptation. Time will tell. (it’ll also tell how well they work as hose guides.
What sort of set up do you have in your garden for hose guides?
Pin these DIY hose guides for later.
Would you like a reminder of this recycled garden project for garden hose guides? Just pin this image to one of your garden art boards on Pinterest.
Admin note: These recycle garden hose guards first appeared on the blog in December of 2012. I have updated the post to include new photos and a printable project card.
DIY Hose Guards
Some rusty rebar pieces and plastic golfballs get recycled in this garden project to make hose guards to keep your hose from trampling your garden vegetables.
Materials
- 12 pieces of rusty rebar - 24 inches long
- 12 plastic orange golf balls
Tools
- Exacto knife
- Rubber Mallet
Instructions
- Cut the rebar into 24 inch lengths.
- Use the exacto knife to enlarge one hole on the bottom of each golf ball.
- Pound the pieces of rebar into the soil at both ends of the rows of your vegetable garden.
- Push the plastic ball onto the ends of the rebar.
Notes
I didn't pay for my rebar, so my project only cost me $3.96. If you need to purchase this, the cost will be higher.