he right color can make a garden braided flexible hose less conspicuous. There's a little ritual I go through at Steel Shower Head the start of every gardening season: the hose muster. It prevents endless frustration and fits of temper as the summer gets hotter, drier and busier. I know that the only way I will ever keep on top of watering is to have an easy-to-use system well in place.

My goal is to set hoses permanently in place, using camouflage tricks. Black ones can run along the base of a building or behind tall plantings. A coiled hose can hide behind a shrub. Gray hoses are best alongside or traversing a stone terrace or path. Dark red works with brick. (Green is the hardest color to hide.) If a hose must cross a stretch of grass, it can be buried in a narrow trench, just deep enough to conceal it and allow mowing.

The first step is to marshal all the hoses on the lawn to see what condition they are in and whether I have the lengths I need. Before buying any new ones, I review the battle plan. The idea is to deliver water with little or no hose-dragging, coiling and uncoiling, and switching around of couplings.

Good, solid hoses made of rubber are longer lasting than plastic ones, and better behaved, because they kink less and are more flexible. Sturdy brass fittings are essential. I also use brass quick couplers to join hoses and to connect them to sprinklers or spray nozzles. There are a number of brands, but choose one you like and stick with it, so all the parts in your system fit together.

Back at the faucet end, a Y-connector allows you to send hoses in two directions. If the Y-connector has little on-off levers, you can leave the faucet on, then flip a lever to turn on one hose at a time. Quarter-turn shut-off valves can be placed at any point in the system to save steps, or to activate a sprinkler without getting wet.

If your faucet is in a bothersome place, say, behind a thorny rosebush, essentially a second faucet on a spike, which you drive into the ground in a better spot, buy a short length of hose and a hose bib extender.

Althought drip systems are sometimes appropriate,I prefer efficient sprinklers that wet the whole ground to coax roots out beyond the planting row.