If you have a big, beautiful home garden, chances are, you have a garden hose. A garden hose also known as a hosepipe is basically a flexible rubber tube that carries water. Although garden hoses may also be made from polyurethane or vinyl, rubber is the most popular material used. Attached to a spigot or a tap, water hoses are useful gardening equipment making watering a lot easier and faster. You can attach a number of things at the end of your garden hoses. Sprinklers and sprayers for example, concentrate or de-concentrate water to one point or over a wider area.

Fashioned from synthetic rubber or durable soft plastic, garden hoses have an internal web of fibers that makes garden hoses flexible and their smooth exteriors make for easy maneuvering between, around, and past trees and other obstacles. And because of their inherent durability, garden hoses can withstand scraping, scratches, even being stepped on without damaging its functional use.

Garden hoses are actually the simplest method of irrigating your garden. But if your garden is quite large, you might benefit from having multiple garden hoses attached end to end. The threads at each end of a typical garden hose easily connect with one another.

Hoses are normally classified into categories depending on usage, toughness, durability, and overall quality of materials used. Garden hoses can be either of three kinds:

Light Duty. Light duty garden hoses are made of lightweight material and can be handled quite easily. You can use a light duty garden hose for fairly light gardening chores or light house cleaning. This type of hose is easy to move around and drag to different places. It can be wrapped around in a spool after use. It is usually made of hard plastic or rubber.

Medium Duty. Medium duty hoses are ideal for general watering purposes. Resistant to kinks and generally durable and flexible, medium duty hoses are good for watering your lawns or washing your car. Most also come with at least a five-year warranty.

Medium duty hoses can give out enough water pressure to take out hardened dirt in hard to reach corners. Although a bit heavy, this is very useful in working with big lawns or gardens.

Heavy Duty. For tough watering chores, use a heavy duty hose. Very kink-resistant, heavy duty hoses come with heavy duty brass octagonal couplings. They're also extremely flexible. Heavy duty hoses can handle all of your typical watering chores such as gardening, car washing, etc.

This type is perfect if you use your hose heavily as most heavy duty hoses come with lifetime warranties.

Other types of hoses are available for various uses and purposes. Generally larger and made with materials tougher than garden hose rubber, some of these types of hoses are employed for industrial purposes and are able to handle intense water pressure.

Whether you're a professional gardener or just doing it as a hobby, pick out a good garden hose to have handy. It should serve you well in the garden and for various other chores you might need it for.