Blooming Door Knob Hose Guards

8 Materials
$70
2 Hours
Medium
I’ve been looking for hose guards to add to the garden beds and along the paths around the Potting Shed. All the hose guards I’ve found have been either too pricey or a little too kitschy. I decided to make hose guards with a little help from my hubby and some inspiration from some metal flowers I found while shopping at Hobby Lobby.
These hose guards are both fun and functional, protecting the flowers in the garden beds from being crushed from the weight of the hose, while adding a little whimsy and serving as garden art!
I started with some vintage door knobs. You can find old door knobs at flea markets, antique malls, and on eBay, paying as little or as much as your budget allows. The single door knobs I picked up without spindles, ranged from $3 -$5.
The door knobs function as finial inserted on top of a piece of rebar, that’s sleeved with a piece of copper pipe. The rebar is hammered into the ground and left slightly longer than the copper pipe placed over it. The pipe keeps the hose from catching and spins as the hose is pulled by while you’re watering.
You could use the door knobs by themselves as a decorative finial for the copper pipe, but I decided to gild the lily ;) by adding flower petals to create a blooming hose guards.
You can find rebar in the building section of the home improvement store. It comes in different lengths and diameters. I used 3/8 inch by 2 foot pieces of rebar from Lowe’s that were $1.48 each.
To attach the door knobs to the rebar, my husband used his bench grinder. Bench grinders are used for sharpening, shaping and grinding tools.
It only took a few minutes per piece of rebar, to grind down the tops enough to fit the knobs.
A word of caution: The rebar will be hot after grinding, allow it to cool completely before touching the top.
Copper pipe comes in different diameters and lengths and is available in the plumbing section of the home improvement store. My 1/2-in diameter x 10-ft  length of pipe was $13.98 at Lowe’s. We decided on the height I wanted for the hose guards and then cut it into 8 inch sections, giving me 15 pieces out of the 10 feet length. My husband’s pipe cutter costs about $15, and is easy and safe for anyone to use, scoring the copper until it breaks.
My flower inspiration came from this metal wall art I found at Hobby Lobby. All their metal decor was 50% off, bringing the price of each of the individual flowers to around $3 a piece.
 I used wire cutters to snip the individual flowers from the tree. Some of the larger flowers/branches required my hubby’s hand strength to remove the flowers.
Using a drill, make a hole through the center of the flowers. Start with a smaller drill bit to drill through the rivet in the center, then a use a larger bit to make holes large enough to fit the rebar. The small center piece of the flower was a casualty after drilling, but ultimately it would have been hidden by the door knob after assembling the hose guard.
Grind the rebar down to the size of your door knob for a good fit. We noticed there is some variation in the door knobs, the older glass knobs I had a larger threaded opening. I sprayed the flower petals with some clear matte sealer to protect the metal petals and help the color last. The door knobs are twisted down on top of the rebar to hold the flower petals in place.
These looming hose guards with purposed door knobs add some whimsy and additional blooms to the garden while protecting the flowers from being decapitated by the weight of the hose –> not the kind of deadheading I want to do in the garden!
I saved the 6 smallest metal flowers from the wall art for another project and made 7 blooming hose guards:


Cost of the flowers, rebar and copper pipe per hose guard were around $6
 
Cost of the door knobs, $3 – 5 a piece, or whatever your budget allows
 
Cost of helpful and handy husband with tools you need–> Priceless ;)


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Mary @ Home is Where the Boat Is
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  • Brenda Jarvis Brenda Jarvis on Apr 26, 2019

    Hi. I would love to try this, however where can I find info on making the flower 🌺 pedals???? Thank you

  • Robyn Garner Robyn Garner on Apr 29, 2019

    I don't quite understand about the "grinding" and "fitting the doorknob" section. I don't have a grinder so if you could explain in detail what precisely we're trying to accomplish I need a different solution.


    Couldn't you merely set the doorknobs on top of the tubing and have the rebar further into the ground? Or glue it to the tubing and have spinning flowers?

  • Jeannie Herman Jeannie Herman on Mar 21, 2020

    How did you get the petals?? I love this idea!! Just went back and reread your directions! So you cut off the petals/leaves off of the big thingy you got at Hobby Lobby??

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  • Bry Bry on Mar 23, 2021

    I bought a bag full of door knobs from the ReUse store to make about a dozen or so hose guards. Thanks for explaining about grinding the tip of the rebar to fit into the knob. I wasn't sure how to put these together. Yours look great and your garden is lovely.

  • Leslie Leslie on Mar 25, 2021

    Well done thank you for sharing. I was thinking if you didn't want the door knobs you could use the tops of garden solar lights that Dollar Tree offers in the springtime.

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