WEATHER-SENSITIVE WIZARD SPELLS END TO OVER-WATERING: New products from Hozelock reinstate the company credentials.

June 2008: News from Hozelock about the products that were unveiled at the Chelsea Flower show and that will also be aired atThe new AC Rain Sensor from Hozelock Gardeners’ World Live and the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

New Hozelock one-touch tap timer makes holiday watering easy, an environment sensor which saves water by turning off sprinklers and other garden irrigation devices when it rains is one of several water-wise innovations which Hozelock will be unveiling to visitors to Gardeners’ World Live (NEC, June 11-15, Stand G155 in Hall 20) and the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (July 8-13, Stand A/65).

The AC Rain Sensor (£14.99) is a companion product to another new watering aid, the AC Pro electronic tap timer (£49.99) which puts fully automatic watering at every gardener’s fingertips. As a show bonus, the sensor will be given away free to every visitor who purchases an AC Pro.

Big, soft touch buttons and 13 one-touch program settings – plus many more via an on-screen interactive ‘Watering Wizard’ – make the AC Pro electronic tap timer really easy to use, even for those of us with technophobia or big fingers. Creating a custom watering program via the Wizard’s simple question and answer menus is as easy as using a mobile ‘phone.
Used with a sprinkler to water a new lawn, it makes it possible to time-shift watering to the middle of the night when evaporation loss will be minimised and when water demand is at its lowest. Or it can control a drip watering system so that hanging baskets, patio containers or greenhouse plants are efficiently irrigated throughout the year – including during holidays – without ever having to pick up a heavy watering can again.

The AC Rain Sensor uses hygroscopic discs which mimic the characteristics of the soil, pausing the active watering program whenever rain is detected and reactivating it as and when the soil dries out. It can be programmed to react to a range of rainfall measurements from 3mm to 25mm so that light rain can be ignored.

The Hozelock AquaPod
Hozelock are also demonstrating their unique Aquapod hassle-free drip watering system (from £26.99) which takes only five minutes to set up and saves up to 90% of the water used by manual irrigation methods.The first-ever gardening product to be awarded the Waterwise Marque for water conservation, the Aquapod is a small drum canister which contains five pull-out micro hoses, each feeding a 4 LPH dripper which delivers controlled amounts of water directly to plants’ roots.

Used in conjunction with a tap timer, the Aquapod couldn’t be easier to set up as an automatic watering system and it is the ideal solution to holiday watering needs.

Look out too for two new Hozelock pumps: the Ultra Metal Garden Pump (£89.99) which enables stored water in butts or underground containers to be hosed onto the garden withThe Ultra metasl Garden pump from Hozelock: Use stored water to water your plants Very high pressure pump (3.5bar), max flow 2200 lph. Allows the use of stored rain water / grey water with up to two Hozelock watering products at the same time. To use, assemble, connect the suction hose and the f all the convenience of mains pressure; and, to cope with the opposite environmental extreme, the Flood Pump (£39.99) can disperse up to 6,000 litres per hour of dirty standing water in the garden or inside the home. Left in an area prone to flooding, it will be automatically activated by rising water and deactivated when the water level goes down.

Visitors to Gardeners’World Live and Hampton Court Palace Flower Show will be invited to toss coins into a water butt on Hozelock’s stand and the total amount raised will be doubled by the company and donated to the Greenfingers Appeal which creates gardens for children’s hospices in the UK.
Since Hozelock are offering their products at special prices to show visitors, the company hopes that customers will be encouraged to make a donation out of the savings they make.

Websites and more information

For more information see the new Hozelock websites at www.hozelock.com and www.hozelock-aquapod.com or call the firm’s helpline on 0121 313 1122.

The Hozelock Flood Pump: High flow pump maximum flow 6000 lph and maximum lift 6m. The flood pump is a self priming pump that can pump dirty and clean water to enable the emptying of flooded rooms, cellars, and ditches. In areas that are prone to flooding the pump can be lef
Hozelock’s new website at www.hozelock.com is well worth a visit. Not only does it showcase every watering, spraying and aquatics product in this market-leading company’s vast range but it introduces some very useful resources including downloadable instruction leaflets, a spare parts catalogue with exploded diagrams, “How-to” guides and an online enquiry form.It’s even possible to download the company’s full glossy brochure so that you can plan a new irrigation system or water feature project at leisure. There is much emphasis on conserving water and, of course, the equipment to help you do it; and advice too on how to make pond water healthy and clear. A calendar of 2008 shows where Hozelock will be demonstrating
water-wise irrigation techniques (including Gardeners' World Live and
Hampton Court Palace Flower Shows) is also published so that anyone
needing advice or spare parts can call in to see them.
The company – which has been appointed as the official irrigation
supplier to the RHS Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace Flower Shows – is
keen to foster communication with gardeners and hopes that its new
interactive websites and presence at the major gardening shows will
encourage direct dialogue.
Coming soon is an interactive stockist finder – although this information, and much more, is already available from the Hozelock Helpline on 0121 313 1122.

“Of course we are always ready and willing to advise gardeners about watering, spraying and pond maintenance techniques but we also want to hear about the gardening problems we haven’t found a solution for yet,” said marketing manager, Simon McArdle. “We have award-winning design, engineering and manufacturing resources here in the UK which can create innovative products to make gardeners’ lives easier – if they tell us what they want.”