Gardena Aquazoom 350/T

Of late Tommy has been sulking quite a bit and I didn't know why until I got Matron's comment to my last post and then I realised that he was feeling like he was missing out with Tippy having all these good idea's on gardening tips and getting all the praise. It reminded me how just before I had to delete all those blog posts Tom was doing his own little bit by road testing various gardening tools and items so that if it came with a star rating from 'Tommy's Trusty Tools' you would have an idea what you were getting. Anyway as I say we didn't get very far with it at the time so to keep him happy I am going to start it up again now. The first item he wants to tell you about is a sprinkler.

We got it one day last year, Tommy insisted on taking a trip to the garden centre – he just loves that place y’know. He isn’t actually allowed inside, I’m not sure why as he is way better behaved than the kids which ARE allowed in. Anyway he told me what to get so I nipped in and got it for him. As you will see below it’s a really nice Gardena sprinkler, it even has a timer so he can set how long he wants it to run for then he doesn’t have to leave off half way through the motor racing to switch it off or anything – is that cool or what?

Look at this! Its a Gardena Aquazoom 350/T

This is the timer control, you can set it to run all the time or anywhere from 5 minutes to 120 minutes. As Bob says this is very handy to save you having to get up and turn it off when watching the racing or if you prefer you can put it on before going to bed and it will stop itself and as you know the night time is the best time for watering. One thing I will point out though and that is it can only turn itself off and not on. The control is easy and simple to use, you just turn it one way for on all the time and the other way goes on to the timer, the further you turn it this way the longer it stays on.

The bottom control allows you to control the flow of water from off to full on this is good because it saves you having to go back and forth to turn it off when you have to move it and you can also regulate how much water goes on, Bob likes this as it saves him getting wet when he tries to moved it still switched on, I think it's boring though and spoils my fun. It is a very good and useful idea though.

The top control regulates how much ground is watered length ways, this control is easy to use even with the sprinkler working which is good as you can easily fine tune it to put water just where you need it and so not waste any.

This control sets how wide you want it to water, there is one at each end of the sprinkler bar and all it does is turn the knozzles outwards so widening the area covered. Again its very easy to use and can be done so with the sprinkler running.

All controls are in orange, it seems well made out of plastic, only having had it one season I can't say how durable it is but Gardena seem to have a good name. It wasn't cheap at £49.95 but for what you get I think it's okay and it puts the water where you want it so if you're on a meter you will save there. There are smaller versions also one like this but without a timer which are obviously cheaper so if you already have a water timer you could get one of these instead.

Bob & Tom.