Hozelock Florabest or Gardenline

Go to any Garden supply outlet and you will most probably find you have very little choice on watering systems, hoses etc. with Hozelock being the most dominant and with all other makes possibly taken off the shelf.

As Hozelock seem to have the market mostly to themselves, they can afford to make it cheap so that their retailers get a fantastic mark-up that they cant refuse and the quality and reliability doesn't seem to concern them... why should it? they want the punters to come back time after time to replace the same things that failed the year before.

If you are lucky and quick enough to visit Lidl or Aldi when they have Florabest and Gardenline stuff in, you will soon realize how much better quality and cheaper they are compared with Hozelock and it is immediately apparent that the German and Austrian engineering is far superior to Hozelock and it is built to perform and last a long time, making Hozelock stuff look like something out of a Christmas cracker.

So from an old long in the tooth gardener, keep an eye open for the proper stuff.

 

I don't know the Florabest and Gardenline brands, but I much prefer Geka hose connectors to the Hozelock style ones. Made from brass, indestructible, simple washer-ring for sealing, can be left out all winter without fear of plastic degrading etc.

All are the same male/female mating system, so anything (of any pipe diameter) connects together - no need to buy (or try to find in the shed!!) two females and a male-to-male to mate two hoses, anything with a geka connector on the end will connect to any other geka connector. Each connector is about £2 - £2.50 each.

Unlike Hozelock-style they cannot be uncoupled when under pressure (which I grant may be a disadvantage for some), but with increased pressure they make an increasingly strong / tight connection [by design]

 

I have not come across GEKA, but they sound good, so I will try them out. Thanks

 

Dunno if these are a good price, but I have bought from them before, and their service was fine.

www.cityirrigation.co.uk/acatalog/Geka.html

Note that you need jubilee-clips, or similar, to attach hose to Geka. That may be a turn-off for some folks

 

I've always found Hozelock to be superior to any others out there so go green - and yellow

 

If all of my Hozelock stuff kept working, I would stay Green and Yellow, but that is the heart of the problem... It just doesn't last

 

@HOZELOCK C/S

Phil, might be time to put your case

 

I no longer have any Hozeloc as it went in the bin as it broke to be replaced by the Florabest from Lidl. Vastly superior product at a fraction of the cost.

 

A very long time ago I bought a load of Hozelock fittings for something like 20p each at a car boot sale near to where they had one of their factories, and I'm still using them. Only had to replace one of the outside tap connectors.

The unbranded ones I previously bought for 10p each were useless.

 

That about sums it up Scrungee IMO. The first H/loc that I bought lasted ages whereas the replacements have not.

 

This 5 star rating review amused me as what there're actually saying is that it leaks at the tap!



P.S. I reckon I've still got enough of the old tap connectors to last about 60 years.

 

The only H/loc that I have now is the pipe joiner (not quick release type, but read on) as it was the only one that I could find when I needed it. It's perfectly good as long as I have the trigger open when I turn the tap on and don't release the trigger whilst the tap is on.Pot luck as to whether it lets go on the old or new hose, although neither hose is H/loc. The last one (fromm the 99p shop) never did this, but being crappo plastic it wouldn't come undone when I wanted to change the hose.

 

They still have plastic teeth (in the bit that grips the hose) though ... which fail over time, and are impossible to straighten out if you ever want to take the connector off that bit of hose and move it to a different piece.

I now use a lance like this:



which has a "nozzle" like this:


not adjustable / no variable spray patterns, but in terms of being able to water a large number of pots / plants quickly it seems to shift more water than the multi-programme guns, so I think that it works out quicker, over all.

Not cheap though ... but all brass and stainless or aluminium fittings, so should last a lifetime??

(I bought one originally with the little tap, like the top picture, but although its a quarter-turn on/off, which is better than turn-turn-turn taps!, it is a small-ish handle, and I find it increasingly difficult with my arthritis, so I now have one with a trigger-handle on the lance, which is much easier to operate).