Raised Bed Gardens

A raised bed garden can add height to your garden, allowing you to create different levels of plantings that are quite appealing. This method of gardening can allow you to avoid weed invasions and create a unique look that expresses your personality. You can easily design the garden yourself and create the raised bed in only a short time.

A raised bed garden can be used to grow anything you desire from flowers to ornamental grasses to small shrubs or even vegetables. If you have a 'blah' landscape, this feature can be used to create interest in the landscape. You can add a small raised area just as a focal point to create interesting and a sense of texture to the garden area.

To create raised bed gardens, you'll need to clear a spot in the landscape of all grass, clearing down to clean, weed-free soil. You'll need to determine what material you want to create the raised bed from; often concrete blocks are used but you can also use stone carefully placed or cemented together. Some gardens of this type are created by using landscape timbers that are four by four or six by six inches square. A raised bed must be considered a permanent or at least semi-permanent feature because removing it is quite difficult. But once you have created the raised area, you'll find that you don't have any desire to remove the feature because it will look wonderful in your landscape.

A raised bed garden should only be one or not more than two feet higher than the landscape surrounding it. Attempting to create a taller bed can be an overwhelming amount of work and there is not reason to reach extraordinary heights. If, however, you want to create a multi-tiered, stepped look, you might need to have the highest level in the back of the tiers be slightly higher than two feet.

After clearing the area for the raised bed garden, place the blocks or other material to be used in the configuration desired. You may find that you have to place stakes into the ground on each side of the material to hold it in place while you work. Configure all the materials fully and be certain they will hold themselves up. If you are working with stone, which makes a gorgeous raised bed, you will need to mix a small batch of concrete and mortar the stones together.

Once the outside of your raised bed garden is prepared, you are ready to add the soil and plants. If you have compost, place a thick layer of compost as the bottom layer of the garden. This will provide nutrition for your plants. Then add soil until the garden soil is about six inches below the top of the confining bed structure. This ensures you have space to mulch and that soil will not wash over the sides of the garden bed.

Plant your raised bed garden with whatever plants you desire. Cover the soil with a thick layer of mulch to prevent weeds from invading and to add a finished look. Then sit back and enjoy your raised bed garden.

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