Hi!
I want, I need automatic watering. It was made for me. We are renting a house, so all of that cool in-ground actually-plumbed stuff is out. It turns out that some pretty nifty hose-mounted automatic watering gear is now available. I bought this, it's cool and it works. The interface isn't even completely awful:
But first I bought this:
It is called Melnor Aquatimer Duo. You might think that it would have two timed outputs. But no, only one of those outlets is timed, the other one is manually-controlled. So, as required in any plumbing or plumbing-related project, I had to go back to the store. Thankfully, I had repackaged the unit so neatly that the "returns specialist" had no problem taking it back.
The one I bought is actually very much like the in-ground ones. The controller comes with two electrically-actuated valves, and the controller can control up to four valves. The valves look like this:
So I bought some of those, too.
I hope your pursuits are going well.
Cheers! 
generalist
