Why on earth would anyone want to complicate one of life's wonderfully simple pleasures?

Accessible, that is, if you have a hose, a faucet and a thumb. No mantra to remember, no positions to contort yourself into. As I turn on the water, my mind slips into another reality. I am at one with my garden, my lawn, my trees, my weeds even. I think only of their needs and their imagined pleasures.

My journey is limited only by the length of my hose.

I focus on the dusty Croton as I simulate a passing shower brightening the bold leaf patterns of green and cream. Watching the droplets trickle down the stem, I alert the roots that water is on its way.

The droop in the basil signals me of its need. Filling up the clay pots until the water level bulges above the edge, I wait patiently for it to drain and repeat it once more. The herbs release their fragrant reward in response to my visit.

Increasingly, the sound of birds, attracted by the wriggling insects dislodged by my watering become part of my reverie. They draw me further into the garden and I follow contentedly, losing track of time.

Many a summer night my parents would ask "Why don't you go out and water the lawn?" Now that I'm a parent, I realize they knew this would keep me absorbed for hours while they sat on the screened porch talking "adult talk." I would move slowly from one parched spot to another, watching the water rise an inch or so before I moved on. I would wonder whether watering where the grass was or where I wanted it to grow was the best. I still ask myself that question.

Is this a pleasure anyone can enjoy? Maybe not. Those who have grown up in a environment deprived of a hose to call their own may have missed an important step in their motor development. Their outdoors was a hands-off place where sprinklers hydrated the landscape and deprived their growing brain of this physical stimulation.

I read recently that violinists who started playing before age 7, upon testing showed a greater sensitivity in their fingertips than those who started playing later in life. The nuances in their fingering allowed them more subtlety in the range of their playing.

I think early hand-waterers acquired much of that same skill. A subtle change in the angle of the thumb can create a delicate sprinkle to rinse off flowering Impatiens or a scouring blast capable of dislodging a mud-dobbing wasp's nest.

• Grass is best watered with sprinklers. Trees, shrubs, garden flowers, and ground cover can be watered with drip irrigation.
• Irrigation equipment should include heads that deliver a pattern of water close to the ground. This makes the water less likely to be lost to wind and evaporation.
• Morning is the best time to water most lawns. After about 10 a.m. heat steals moisture from your lawn through evaporation. When you water early you can water less because more of the water is absorbed into your lawn and that saves time and money.
• Watering during the heat of day can actually harm your lawn. Scald or burn damage occurs when hot sunlight hits water droplets that cling to leaves.
• At night, cool, moist conditions create an ideal environment for lawn diseases to develop.
• A light sprinkling is the least effective method of watering and can damage your lawn. A good soaking gets to the root of the problem by encouraging deep, solid root growth.
• Water only when your lawn needs it. To test whether or not your lawn needs a soaking, step on the grass. If it springs back up, you don't need to water. If it stays flat, it's time to water again.

Source: American Water Works Association

Each new device presents me with a discouraging maze of switches, couplers and activators. The handle no longer turns on the water. Instead, I must flip the cover on a box housing at least 12 digital push buttons.

After furiously punching each of them with still no water, I stalk into the house in search of my reading glasses in a desperate attempt to read the fine print and overcome this latest digital obstacle. I bellow to my husband, "Is it too much to ask for a simple hose that I can turn off and on. Do I have to reprogram the entire sprinkler system just to wash out the compost bucket?"

That seems like a reasonable request, he answers. But I'm not fooled. We've been through this many times before. Next time it will be yet another contraption guaranteed to solve our complicated hydro-needs and "save time."

I'm slowly losing touch with my garden more and more, abandoning it to the arbitrary measured daily dosage of the computerized/digital watering system.

The plants lose; I lose.

I move through my day minus the benefit of a short squirt or two from a long hose.