The Garden Rain Gauge - Both Functional And Beautiful

If you have a lovely garden, and you take good care of it, you will want a garden rain gauge to monitor the waterfall on it.

There are even models of garden rain gauges which can embellish your garden, so you need no worry about some unsightly gadget distracting from your beautiful flowers. Garden rain gauges are designed mostly to stand upright either among your plants, at the edge of your lawn, or on a stepping stone or patio surface. Some gauges have hooks to hang them from a branch or a suspending structure, and a few are designed with a long post, to be buried into the soil.

Though you probably do not need an extremely accurate reading of the rainfall in your garden, you could also consider a more costly and rather more scientific electronic digital garden gauge. These have recently come down in price, though, and you need not spend much more than $50. The traditional glass or plastic tubular gauges cost only a few dollars, and there are even metal gauges on the market now. Many gauges now come with outdoor accents, ranging from plastic flowers to friendly-looking gnomes.

If you have trouble reading small numbers, you might prefer a jumbo garden rain gauge, especially designed to be read with ease, often using colorful floating markers to help you take an accurate reading. You probably do not need the increments of your rainfall monitoring to be more than one sixteenth of an inch, but if you do, electronic rain gauges can provide accuracy to within 0.01 inches, with large, very clear number displays in the case of the models with back-lit monitor displays.

Among the most unusual rain gauges, you find a clear acrylic shim which is hung or buried point down. The increments marked on this gauge are quite clear. Such completely clear acrylic gauges, most of them tubular in shape, actually go unseen in many gardens when placed strategically. You may attach one of these clear gauges to a fence post or a tutor, taking care to install the unit so it will not topple or fall, and most people will not even notice it is there.

When installing your garden rain gauge, look up and make sure that there is no impediment to the rain falling directly into the unit. There should be no roof overhang, drainage pipe, branch, or vegetation which could impede the direct fall of the rain drops. Remember also that branches and vegetation grow, so check the feasibility of your unit’s position often. This is particularly true of post mounted gauges, since roots can displace them and ferns, leaves, or flowers can obstruct the opening, if not at the time of installation, soon after. Your garden grows very fast. Beware also of children, pets, and garden creatures which could affect the position of your gauge, and make sure to rinse it out periodically so nothing which falls inside the unit and settles there and distorts your reading.