Raised bed garden ideas: 15 Raised Bed Garden Design Ideas

15 Raised Bed Garden Design Ideas

By

Peg Aloi

Peg Aloi

Peg Aloi is a professional gardener covering plants in various contexts, from recipes to heirloom orchard fruits. Her area of interest is the folklore of plants and herbs. She’s worked as a garden designer for public housing, individual homes, and businesses, and gives workshops on various gardening topics.

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Updated on 06/08/22

Reviewed by

Kathleen Miller

Reviewed by
Kathleen Miller

Kathleen Miller is a highly-regarded Master Gardener and Horticulturist who shares her knowledge of sustainable living, organic gardening, farming, and landscape design. She founded Gaia’s Farm and Gardens, a working sustainable permaculture farm, and writes for Gaia Grows, a local newspaper column. She has over 30 years of experience in gardening and sustainable farming.

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The Spruce / Autumn Wood 

Raised beds can be as humble or creative as you like. A raised bed planter can be a permanent fixture for perennial plants to settle in and mature. The initial cost of getting your raised bed set up will depend on how elaborate you make it, but once in place, raised beds are no more expensive to maintain than traditional gardens. They offer a lot of benefits. 

What Is a Raised Garden Bed?

Raised bed gardening involves growing plants in soil that is higher than the ground. Most commonly, you can do this with some type of enclosure or frame made of wood, stone, bales of hay, or even repurposed material like old dressers.

• 01
  of 15

  Custom-Designed Raised Beds

  devonandearth / Instagram

  Raised bed gardens can be fit just about any space. With a little creativity, you can create an entire garden sitting area. This multi-level raised bed incorporated simple straight lines by Peter Donegan Landscaping. It comes complete with a potting shed and lamppost. Add a bench section, like the one at the end of the front bed, and you have seating for the outdoor dining area. As the plants fill in and the wood weathers, this garden will take on a natural, rustic appearance.

• 02
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  Built-In Raised Beds

  _maple_house / Instagram

  When making a raised bed, instead of going in-ground, you can place it where the sun or shade is the best for the plants you want to cultivate. You can also prevent tunneling pests from decimating your plants. Plants can be healthier and more productive in a raised bed because you can control the quality of the soil and water drainage. If you build the sides wide enough to make a bench, you can even sit and garden. For those with back problems, the positioning can make it easier to tend the plants.  Raised beds of brick or wood, as pictured, can also enhance the design of your homestead or backyard.

• 03
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  Grow Bag Raised Beds

  theurbangardenher / Instagram

  Another great advantage of raised bed gardens is that they sit well above the underground frost line, so the soil warms up faster in the spring, and you can start planting sooner. The material used for your beds makes a difference here: metal holds more heat from the sun. But grow bags are a good option as they don’t freeze solid and soil in them defrosts rather quickly. Also, it is a great way to provide the heat needed to grow Mediterranean plants like sage and lavender. Grow bags may seem too easy; but within minutes you could have a great raised bed garden!

• 04
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  Herb Spiral Garden

  OK-Photography / Getty Images

  Spiral gardens are a popular permaculture technique. They increase the amount of usable planting area without taking up more ground space in your garden. You can easily build them out of stone, brick, wood, or simply pile up the soil. The unusual shape and swirl of plants make for an eye-catching focal point in your garden. Herbs are the plants of choice in this photo, but you can grow anything using the spiral design. 

• 05
  of 15

  Trough Gardens

  lynnelambourne / Instagram

  One of the easiest ways to create raised bed gardens is by using animal feeding troughs. There is no assembly required, but be sure to drill some drainage holes in the bottom before you add the soil. The metal gives the garden an industrial look and conducts heat, warming the soil in the spring. You can use new or used troughs, depending on availability and your desired look. Depending on what you chose to grow, the plants may need a bit of extra water during the hottest part of summer.

  The Best Garden Hoses, Tested by The Spruce

• 06
  of 15

  Square Foot Raised Beds

  hollyhillflowers / Instagram

  Square foot gardening involves dividing the growing area into small square sections, typically 1 foot per square. The aim is to produce an intensively planted vegetable garden or a highly productive kitchen garden. This can be measures and divided with various materials, including netting.

  Using a raised bed for growing vegetables allows you to control the soil quality and prevent it from becoming compacted. Vegetable roots can grow unimpeded. The beds do not have to be very high off the ground to get the benefits from being in a raised bed. Even 6 to 8 inches can be enough.

• 07
  of 15

  Flower Boxes as Raised Beds

  Konoplytska / Getty Images

  Raised beds have very few limits. If you have a sturdy fence you can attach wooden boxes as small raised beds; like window boxes, but on your fence. These can look good all year long, with annuals filling in as perennials stop blooming. During the winter holidays, you can also decorate these areas with seasonal greens and decorations as a unique decor idea.

• 08
  of 15

  Cinderblock Raised Beds

  mountaincrestgardens / Instagram

  There are many ways to build raised beds out of recycled materials.  Concrete blocks or cinderblocks are one of the most popular. Note that some older cinder blocks may contain fly ash, which is the “cinders” that remain from burning coal. It is still being debated whether this is safe to use around edible plants. If you get new blocks that are made out of concrete, you can avoid the ash issue. The new blocks are substantially heavier than older cinder blocks but are OK to use for a vegetable garden. Be careful though—concrete blocks leech lime. Lime can raise the soil’s pH. To be on the safe side, use plants that thrive in alkaline soil. These sturdy succulents and sedums are hardy and not too fussy about soil so they’re a good choice for these planters.

• 09
  of 15

  Hoop House Raised Bed

  hamaksatcher_garden / Instagram

  With a little pre-planning, you can create a multi-season vegetable garden. Raised beds give you more flexibility to control the growing conditions in your garden and make it harder for animals to get at your vegetables. If you build a hoop house on top of a raised bed, you can be prepared for any weather, handle frost, and give yourself a headstart in the spring. This lightweight netting is sturdy enough to hold a cloth covering in case of frost.

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• 10
  of 15

  Raised Bed Border

  mkistryn / Getty Images

  Raised beds are a terrific option for yards with steep slopes. By building up the beds at their lowest sections you can create the illusion of a level garden. Make your beds wide enough so that you can still have a layered flower garden with a border of shrubs framing the back of the garden and plenty of room for perennials that will provide colors, textures, and edge-softening drapes. This garden in Italy features a succession of raised beds edged with rocks to make the most of a steep slope location.

• 11
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  Space Saving Design ideas

  ransomebuilds_diy / Instagram

  Gardeners with limited space can often use raised beds designs in a creative way to make the most of what they have. This clever design puts a wooden raised bed flower box (made of reclaimed materials) on top of the trash bin storage area: sprucing up what’s normally a drab spot and bringing beauty to a utilitarian functional area. The string lights and decorations add a personal touch.

• 12
  of 15

  Raised Bed Arbor

  BethAmber / Getty Images

  Using a trellis or arbor with a raised bed makes it even easier to harvest vegetables and keeps them neater than if they were sprawling on the ground. Vertical gardening allows you to grow more plants without taking up more space. This raised bed with zucchini plants shows that your design can be as simple as creating a basic frame by tying two dowels (or bamboo poles) together and tethering them. Other crops may benefit from stretching garden netting across the trellis structure.

• 13
  of 15

  Lasagna Garden Raised Beds

  nanceband / Instagram

  Lasagna gardens are essentially layered gardens that don’t require digging, but the term has come to mean using materials other than soil beneath the topsoil layer. In this case wooden raised beds are constructed, filled with cut wood and grass clippings, then have a layer of top soil added. This cuts down on the heavy weight and expense of using soil all the way down, if your plantings don’t produce a deep root system.

• 14
  of 15

  Milk Crate Garden

  yorbaplants / Instagram

  Repurpose milk crates and make your raised bed portable. This milk crate raised bed is easy to set up, and you can configure into any shape you like. If you need your plants closer to your kitchen, or you want to place it in a shadier spot, just pick up the crate and go. These containers already come with drainage holes. And, when you need to change the soil, you can just lift the crate and dump the contents in the compost pile and start again.

• 15
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  Raised Bed and Container Design

  Rosemary Calvert / Getty Images

  Maybe you have brick raised beds and want to make them feel fuller and more decorative. Placing containers below the level of the brick wall allows you to play with different levels that draw the eyes up and down, and allow for an almost unlimited variety of sizes and shapes. You can even plan out your planting so that you provide four seasons of visual interest. Containers can also be moved to change up the design any time you want.

This is just a handful of ideas for creative ways of making raised beds in your garden. Repurposing materials into something useful is a great feeling, and gardeners are nothing if not resourceful. Raised beds can help you make better use of your space and find new and often eye-catching ways of growing food and flowers.

How to Garden in Raised Beds

Gardeners who are cursed with poor garden soil will find the raised-bed gardening method to be their salvation. The basic idea is that instead of battling against poor soil conditions, you build above ground, where you have absolute control over the soil texture and ingredients. In a region with extreme soil (very sandy, very clayey, or very infertile), gardeners can tailor the soil in a raised bed, so it is perfect for growing whatever plants they choose.

There are other notable advantages to raised bed gardening. They are excellent for older gardeners or those with physical limitations, for whom tending plants at ground level can be painful or impractical. A garden bed raised even nine to 12 inches above the ground can be much easier to tend, and you can even build elevated, waist-level raised beds that make it possible to garden without ever stooping over at all.

And because the soil in raised beds is exposed on four sides, it warms up earlier in the spring, making for a slightly extended growing season.

When to Garden in Raised Beds

While your actual gardening work will begin at whatever time is appropriate in your region (based on USDA hardiness zone, etc.), the preliminary work can begin months in advance, as you can spend the winter months planning, ordering seeds and other plants, and even cutting lumber in anticipation of speeding along the construction of your raised bed when the weather becomes favorable. In general, though, raised bed gardening begins in earnest about the time the last frost of winter has passed and soil temperatures have reached 60 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. For zone 3 gardeners, this may mean you don’t actively begin gardening until June, while zone 9 to 10 gardeners may be able to garden year-round.

In a larger sense, the time to begin raised bed gardening is whenever the advantages of a more accessible garden bed, filled with good-quality, tailor-made soil, become evident to you.

Before Getting Started

A raised bed garden can be best understood as a large, stationary container garden raised up above ground level, sometimes incorporating native soil, sometimes not. Many gardeners choose to fill the entire raised bed with same kind of soilless potting mixture used for portable containers. But if buying large quantities of potting mix (or the ingredients to make your own) is too expensive, you can also fill your raised bed with a mixture of purchased topsoil and organic amendments, such as compost, manure, or peat moss.

Most raised beds include some form of sidewalls to contain the soil. But a raised bed can also be more free-form, with soil and amendments merely piled high over existing soil to make an elevated planting berm.

Contained raised beds are great for vegetable and herb gardens, as well as flower gardens. Fruits, such as strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and raspberries, also do very well in this type of bed. They can even be used to make shrub islands. There are very few plants that won’t grow better in a raised bed than they do in an ordinary garden bed.

Choosing a Garden Site

If you know that you’ll be growing vegetables or herbs, or sun-loving flowers in your new garden, try to select a site that gets at least eight hours of sun per day—six hours is a bare minimum. A flat, level area is important, and you should also make sure that the area has easy access to water sources, as well as room for you to work.

Planning the Raised Bed Design

When choosing a shape and size for your raised bed, make sure that you’ll be able access all parts of the garden without stepping into the bed. One of the main advantages of a raised bed is that the soil doesn’t get compacted the way it does in a conventional bed, because it is designed so that you don’t have to walk through it.

It is a good idea to keep the garden no more than 4 feet wide, because this way you can access the middle of the bed from either side. If you’re placing your bed against a wall or fence that limits access from the back side, then your raised bed should be no more than 3 feet wide. The raised bed can be any length you choose.

Depth for your raised bed should be dictated by the quality of the underlying soil, as well as the plants you are intending to grow. At a minimum, a raised bed should be at least 6 or 8 inches deep—a depth that will support many vegetables, herbs, and bedding plants. At this shallow depth, though, you are counting on underlying soil being of sufficient quality to allow plant roots to extend down below the bed.

If you have decent subsoil (not too clayey or rocky) you can simply loosen the soil with a garden fork and build a 6- to 8-inch deep raised bed. If you have poor subsoil, then a deeper raised bed is a better idea. Many crops, such as carrots, parsnips, or potatoes will do better in beds that are at least 12 inches deep. Deeper beds are also well suited for many woody shrubs and perennials.

Choosing Building Materials

While it’s possible to build a raised gardening area by simply heaping additional prepared soil onto the garden site, most raised beds are constructed with some kind of rigid walls for the frame.

You can choose from a variety of materials to construct your frame. Wood is a very popular choice, because it is inexpensive and easy to work with. One advantage of wood is that you can base your raised bed dimensions on standard lengths of framing lumber, which minimizes the amount of cutting required. (Home centers generally sell framing lumber in 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-foot lengths.)

Concrete blocks, natural stone, or brick are also nice options. Retaining wall blocks, for example, are easy to assemble into secure raised bed walls. Stone and concrete are more expensive options, though, and moving them around requires no small amount of effort.

Warning

If you will be using your raised bed to grow edibles, it’s best to avoid wood that has been pressure-treated with chemicals to protect it from insect damage. While newer forms of pressure-treated lumber no longer use arsenic, which was a known health hazard, some experts still caution against using the newer forms of copper-based pressure-treated lumber, as the chemicals can still leach out into the soil. Cedar makes a good alternative to pressure-treated lumber for outdoor beds that will grow edibles.

Some gardeners go the ultra-simple route and simply place bales of hay or straw in whatever configuration they desire, then fill it with good soil and compost and plant it up. This solution will only give you a year or so of use because the straw will decompose. But it’s worth trying if you don’t mind replacing the bales yearly, or if you’re still developing a more permanent solution.

Our demonstration shows how to build a raised bed from standard cedar dimension lumber.

Equipment / Tools

• Garden fork or tiller
• Circular saw or jig saw
• Shovel
• Buckets
• Level
• Screw gun

Materials

• 3
  2 x 10 or 2 x 12 boards, 8 feet long (cedar or pressure-treated)
• 4
  4 x 4 posts, 18 inches long
• Corrosion-resistant utility screws
• Topsoil
• Organic soil additives (compost, peat moss, manure, etc.)
• Plants or seeds

1. Prepare the Site

   Once you know the size and shape of your bed, you can get to work prepping the site. How much prep you’ll require is determined by the depth of the bed you’re planning, as well as by the plants you’re planning to grow there.

   To ensure that your plant’s roots have plenty of room to grow, it is a good idea to dig out the existing sod and loosen the soil with a shovel or garden fork to a depth of 8 to 12 inches. You can even add compost or other amendments to the subsoil before the raised bed is constructed, which will make for a very deep growing medium. This can be essential if your raised bed will be growing shrubs or other deep-rooted plants, where the raised bed alone doesn’t provide enough depth.

   Less site preparation is needed for raised beds that will be used for herbs or other shallow-rooted plants. Here, a mere 6-inch deep raised bed placed right on the subsoil can be sufficient. To save yourself some labor, you can use newspaper, landscape fabric, or cardboard to cover and smother the grass, then put your soil and amendments right on top.

2. Construct the Frame

   If you are building the raised bed frame from lumber, begin by cutting the frame pieces. A very easy method is to use 2 x 10 or 2 x 12 lumber to build a 4 x 8-foot frame. This design will require just three 8-foot cedar boards, plus four 18-inch-long 4 x 4 posts used to anchor the corners of the frame.

   To build the frame, cut the pieces to length, so you have two 8-foot sides and two 4-foot ends, then attach them together to make a simple rectangular frame with side and end pieces secured to 4 x 4 corner posts with corrosion-resistant utility screws. The end grain of the side pieces should be covered by the end pieces, and the top of the frame should be flush with the tops of the posts. (The posts will be partly embedded in the subsoil to give the frame stability.)

   If you wish, the corner joints of the frame can be reinforced with metal L-brackets or some other hardware for extra strength.

3. Anchor the Frame

   Position the frame on the garden site, digging down where necessary to embed the corner posts in the subsoil. Use a carpenter’s level to adjust the frame, so it is level side to side and back to front. If necessary, you can remove additional soil or shim under the frame to hold it in a level position as you fill the frame with soil.

4. Create the Soil Mix

   The whole point of a raised bed garden is that it gives you the opportunity to garden in perfect soil. While it is possible to simply have a load of local topsoil delivered to fill your raised bed, most gardeners will have better results by creating a tailored soil mix. You can also fill the bed with large bags of ordinary commercial potting mix, though this can be expensive

   One common DIY “recipe” is to mix equal parts quality topsoil, compost, and well-decomposed manure. Some gardeners also like to blend in a slow-release fertilizer with the other ingredients. If you will be growing plants that have specific soil needs, you can tailor the mix to their needs. For example, an azalea shrub island requires a more acidic soil, while a raised bed used to grow ornamental succulents may call for a sandier, more porous soil mix.

   Another home recipe is to create a “soilless” medium similar to that used in ordinary potting soils. This mixture is comprised of equal parts peat moss, compost, and vermiculite. This type of mix, recommended for square foot gardening beds, will gradually decompose, however, and will require yearly replenishment.

   Whatever soil recipe you choose, it’s easiest to thoroughly blend the ingredients on a large tarp or on a concrete slab before shoveling the mix into the raised bed. When the raised bed is filled, smooth the soil out with a rake.

5. Plant the Garden

   Raised beds are equally well suited for direct-sowing seeds and growing just about any potted nursery starts you want. Remember that the soil in raised beds warms up faster in the spring, but will also cool off faster at night, so this may affect when you plant in the spring. Many people choose to plant a raised bed earlier in the spring, but guard against nighttime chills by covering it with a tent of plastic at night. Covering the bed can also extend the growing season in the fall, when nights begin to get chilly.

   The soil around the edges of a raised bed tend to get hotter during the day and colder at night than in the center of the bed, so this should be kept in mind when choosing the location of plants within the raised bed. Temperature-sensitive plants may not do well around the perimeter of a raised bed.

6. Tend the Plants

   Caring for plants in a raised bed can be slightly different. Soil warms up, cools off, and dries out faster, because all four sides are exposed. This effect will be more noticeable with smaller raised beds. You may need to water slightly more often than with traditional in-ground gardens. And with more frequent watering comes more frequent feeding for certain plants.

   Other than this, care for a raised bed garden is usually easier than for in-ground gardens. The hand-mixed soil is usually free of weed seeds and pathogens that are plentiful in traditional gardens, and those weeds that do appear are easier to remove when there is good access around all sides. As with any garden, mulching the top of the soil will help retain moisture and keep weeds down. Moisture retention is important because raised beds tend to drain faster than conventional beds.

   Each spring or fall, it’s a good idea to top dress with fresh compost and manure, or, if your bed holds plants for only part of the year, go ahead and dig the compost or manure into the top several inches of soil before planting in the spring.

   At the end of the growing season as the weather grows cold, remove annuals and cut back perennials to ground level. Heavy mulching of perennial roots can be a good idea in a raised bed, as the soil can get somewhat colder than for in-ground gardens.

   Square Foot Gardening Makes the Most of Your Garden Space

The Best Raised Garden Beds of 2022

By

Sage McHugh

Sage McHugh

Sage McHugh is a writer with a passion for products and how they enhance our everyday lives. She reviews home products, games, and home decor for The Spruce.  Her over 5 years of work has included publications in AlterNet.org, ConsumerSearch.com, Salon.com, and USA.Canon.com, among other websites.

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Editorial Process

Updated on 07/06/22

Reviewed by

Mary Marlowe Leverette

Reviewed by
Mary Marlowe Leverette

Mary been a Master Gardener for 30+ years and a commercial and residential gardener for 50+ years. She is a former Clemson University Extension Agent. She worked to develop the Riverbanks Botanical Garden that opened in 1995. Mary co-owns Marlowe Farms Apple Orchards.

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The Spruce / Amelia Manley

Raised garden beds offer a dedicated area to grow your plants and can provide better drainage, self-watering features, storage for tools, and protection from pests. Depending on the height, some can eliminate the need to bend or kneel to work in the garden.

Plants that require loose, nutrient-dense soil thrive in raised-bed growing conditions, points out McKenzy Winkler, a master gardener and herb farmer based in Pennsylvania. “This includes vegetables like garlic, onions, carrots, and potatoes—anything with a tap root,” she says.

While researching the best raised garden beds, we evaluated products based on their size, material, assembly requirements, and sturdiness, in addition to special features. Our best overall pick, the Best Choice Products Raised Garden Bed, is a spacious, solid, and sturdy unit that brings your growing space to a comfortable standing height.

Here are the best raised garden beds.

Our Top Picks

Best Overall:

Best Choice Products Raised Garden Bed at Amazon

Best Budget:

Emsco Group City Pickers Raised Bed Grow Box at Amazon

Best Splurge:

Vegepod Raised Garden Bed at Amazon

Best Steel:

Sunnydaze Raised Metal Garden Bed Kit at Amazon

Best Kit:

Land Guard Galvanized Raised Garden Bed Kit at Amazon

Best for Herbs:

VegTrug 8-Pocket Gray Herb Garden at Amazon

Best Cart:

FOYUEE Garden Bed On Wheels at Amazon

Best Multi-Tiered:

Yaheetech 3-Tier Raised Garden Bed at Amazon

Best Self-Watering:

Keter Easy Grow Raised Garden Bed at Amazon

In This Article

• Our Picks

• What to Look for

• Why Trust The Spruce

Amazon

View On Amazon
View On Bestchoiceproducts. com
View On Target

What We Like

• Attractive, rustic design

• Ample gardening space

• Includes a bed liner

• Water-resistant and durable

What We Don’t Like

Offering 5 cubic feet of gardening space, the Best Choice Products Raised Garden Bed is our top choice. Sturdy and durable, it provides plenty of room for plants and vegetables without taking up too much outdoor space. The stand’s three holes along the bottom help keep the soil fresh and prevent plants from becoming waterlogged. Standing 39 inches tall, the stand is about waist height for the average adult, minimizing the need to bend down or kneel to reach the plants. The elevated design is also helpful for deterring pests and rodents from invading your garden.

Assembling this raised garden bed is straightforward and fairly painless. You should be able to connect the boards easily via dovetail slots, though a mallet might come in handy if you encounter any resistance. The company also provides eight screws and pre-drilled holes you can use to fasten the pieces together for added stability. Plus, the package includes a liner separating the wood from the potting soil, which improves the planter’s longevity.

Though the cedar wood is untreated, it seems to hold up well over time—we found very few reports of warping or sagging. We also appreciate that it is available in two other sizes: a smaller version, measuring 34 x 18 x 30 inches, and a larger bed that measures 72 x 24 x 30 inches. Finally, this sturdy garden bed can support up to 200 pounds but lacks wheels and is hard to move once filled, so keep that in mind when considering placement.

Dimensions: 48 x 24 x 39 inches︱Material: Cedar wood︱Assembly Required: Yes

Amazon

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What We Like

What We Don’t Like

Due to its compact size, the City Pickers Raised Bed Grow Box is ideal for growing a couple of vegetables or a handful of herbs. Measuring 24 x 9.75 x 7.5 inches, this planter is perfect for patios, apartments, fire escapes, and other urban areas with limited space. Despite its budget price tag, it offers a slew of convenient features. The unit sits on four swivel casters, so it’s incredibly easy to move around. The self-watering system allows it to wick moisture from the 2-gallon water reservoir and release excess water via overflow holes, preventing overwatering. Plants are positioned above an aeration screen, which encourages oxygen flow for faster growth.

The City Pickers planting box is only about 9 inches deep, which is rather shallow, especially if your plants require ample water and root space. However, the tub’s mulch cover reduces evaporation and prevents the soil from drying out. Minimal assembly is required—all you do is attach the wheels and insert the fill tube and screen. Even though the City Pickers planting box is one of the least costly options on the market, this small garden bed exceeds expectations with its thoughtful and functional design.

Dimensions: 24 x 9.75 x 7.5 inches︱Material: Plastic︱Assembly Required: Yes

Amazon

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View On Vegepod.com

What We Like

• Includes a protective cover

• Self-watering system

• Creates a microclimate

• Built-in mist sprayer

What We Don’t Like

The Vegepod Raised Garden Bed has some standout features that justify its steep price tag, including a protective cover. In addition to protecting plants from bugs, pests, and animals, the cover also blocks harsh sunlight and creates the ideal microclimate. This raised garden bed also is equipped with a self-watering system, which uses a wicking technique to draw the water upward and keep the soil moist. One drawback is the few tiny drain holes, so water doesn’t drain well. (Additionally, the perforated cover doesn’t stop water from seeping in. To prevent the garden bed from becoming saturated when it rains, you could drill a few additional drain holes or keep it under a covered patio.)

Another great feature of the Vegepod is the built-in sprayer, which can connect to a garden hose and evenly water all the plants. A stand or trolley, sold separately, brings the Vegepod to waist height, so you can comfortably water your plants without having to bend down. Compared with other models, the assembly process is notably more complicated. No tools are required, but you need to align and bolt together over a dozen pieces. Since the instructions are lacking, putting it together likely involves some trial and error. Despite a few flaws, the Vegepod is still a solid, high-end choice for enhancing your gardening experience. It comes in three sizes: small, medium, and large, so you can choose the bed that best suits your needs.

Dimensions: 15.5 x 60 x 13 inches︱Materials: Polypropylene, iron, and plastic︱Assembly Required: Yes

Amazon

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View On Sunnydazedecor. com

What We Like

• Extremely durable construction

• Highly resists rust and corrosion

• Can withstand harsh weather

• Generously sized growing space

What We Don’t Like

• Assembly is a bit time-consuming

• Need to bend or kneel to use

• Water may drain out the sides

The Sunnydaze Raised Metal Garden Bed is an extremely durable planter that’s built to last. Made of strong galvanized steel, it’s more durable than its wood and plastic counterparts and can withstand the harshest weather, making it an ideal choice for anyone living in an extreme climate. Assembly is straightforward but a bit time-consuming due to the sheer number of fasteners.

Measuring 40 inches across with a 16-inch depth, the Sunnydaze is ideal for growing an assortment of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs. It’s also deep enough to grow vining plants such as pumpkins, watermelons, and squash. This bed is open on the bottom, so water drains freely into the ground. You may notice some water draining out the sides where the metal pieces meet the supports. To prevent that, try repacking the soil in those areas. In case you’re not completely satisfied, this product is backed by a 1-year manufacturer’s warranty.

Dimensions: 36 x 40 x 16 inches︱Material: Steel︱Assembly Required: Yes

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Amazon

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What We Like

• Thick, durable galvanized metal

• Large growing area

• Open base for optimal drainage

• Available in three sizes and five colors

What We Don’t Like

The Land Guard Raised Garden Bed Kit may not win awards for aesthetics, but it is one of the most durable options. Made of galvanized metal sheets, this bed highly resists rust, corrosion, and water pressure. Because it’s thicker than most other rectangular elevated garden beds, it is extremely solid and sturdy. This unit is fairly easy to assemble, but the process is a bit time-consuming due to the number of nuts and bolts.

This raised garden bed has an open base, which effectively protects plant roots by preventing excess water from accumulating. Measuring 48 inches across and 12 inches deep, it’s suitable for growing deep-rooted plants such as watermelons, pumpkins, and squash. There’s plenty of room to grow larger crops of vegetables or multiple vining plants. You can order it in two larger sizes—6 x 3 x 1 feet or 8 x 4 x 1 feet (both options consist of two pieces)—as well as five colors: silver, gray, green, brown, and blue.

Dimensions: 48 x 24 x 12 inches︱Material: Metal︱Assembly Required: Yes

Walmart

View On Amazon
View On Walmart
View On Home Depot

What We Like

• Easy to assemble

• Sturdy and well-designed

• Includes a removable divider and pre-formed liners

• Features a lower shelf for storage

• Elevated to standing height

What We Don’t Like

Divided into eight small compartments, this raised garden bed provides the perfect space for growing herbs. Standing 23 inches tall, this planter elevates the growing area to a comfortable standing height. Users shouldn’t have to crouch down or strain their backs when tending their herbs. This unit is easy to assemble, which is another plus, but it requires a cordless drill or screwdriver. It also would be helpful to have two people on hand for a precision fit. At 17 pounds when empty, this unit is significantly lighter than other garden beds, making it much easier to move around.

For increased protection against the elements, this herb planter is made of weather-resistant cedar and treated with a preservative. The slotted upper shelf allows adequate drainage for herbs. Pre-formed cloth liners in each compartment contain the soil and allow water to seep through. (You can order replacement liners from the manufacturer, but they are on the pricey side.) The lower storage shelf is an excellent feature, allowing you to keep gardening tools and supplies within arm’s reach.

Dimensions: 31 x 31 x 23 inches︱Material: Cedar︱Assembly Required: Yes

Courtesy of Amazon

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What We Like

• Has wheels for portability

• Sits at around waist height

• Features a lower shelf for storage

• Durable steel construction

What We Don’t Like

The FOYUEE Raised Planter Box offers ample growing space for an assortment of plants, vegetables, flowers, and herbs. At just over 31 inches tall, there’s no need to bend down to reach the plants. We love that you can move this planter around easily with the help of wheels on one side and a wide, comfortable handle on the other. Another convenient feature is the lower storage shelf, which can hold gardening tools and other supplies.

Made of galvanized steel with a rust-resistant coating, this unit is less prone to rotting than its wooden counterparts. And the dark steel frame gives it a more modern aesthetic. Helping to prevent overwatering, a drainage hole and line located in the middle of the cart allows excess water to escape. The only hitch is water drains directly onto the lower storage shelf, so avoid storing any items you don’t want to get wet. Assembly is fairly easy, with included hardware (but not the necessary pliers and screwdriver), but expect it to take longer than the manufacturer’s 5-minute claim.

Dimensions: 37.4  x 31.5 x 15.7 inches︱Material: Galvanized steel and metal︱Assembly Required: Yes

The Best Planters for All Your Potting Needs

Amazon

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What We Like

• Three tiers for separate growing spaces

• Versatile configuration

• Solid and stable wood frame

• Minimal maintenance required

What We Don’t Like

Practical and versatile, the raised garden bed from Yaheetech features a simple, rustic three-tiered design, providing separate growing areas for various plants or planting methods. You can configure the tiers vertically or lay them out side by side horizontally, and the non-spliced side wood panels help prevent them from leaking. Since it’s open on the bottom, water drains freely into the ground. What’s more, the natural wood is sanded smooth to reduce the risk of splinters. All in all, it’s designed to last for years with minimal maintenance.

The assembly seems incredibly easy and straightforward, with all the necessary hardware included. We recommend using a power drill rather than a screwdriver to save you a significant amount of time. The posts feature decorative end caps, which add a bit more style to the finished product. Note that this bed has taller sides: The second and third tiers are over 20 inches high. Therefore, you need more soil to fill it. You should be prepared to add anywhere from 15 to 20 bags of standard topsoil.

Dimensions: 47.24 x 22.0 x 33.9 inches︱Material: Wood︱Assembly Required: Yes

Walmart

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What We Like

• Self-watering technology

• Built-in water gauge

• Leakproof drainage system

• Can be used indoors or outdoors

What We Don’t Like

The watering system and reservoir on Keter’s Easy Grow Raised Garden Bed ensure that your plants receive just the right amount of water. A built-in water gauge indicates when plants require extra moisture. When the gauge turns red, it allows excess water to drain. If it’s green, you have the go-ahead to water again. Made from polypropylene resin, this planter is durable enough to stand up to everyday outdoor use. However, thanks to its leakproof design, it’s also safe to use indoors. The drainage plug contains water within the planter until you decide to empty it.

The raised garden bed, which stands about 30 inches, eliminates the need to bend or crouch while gardening. Offering a 31.7-gallon growing space, the planter is spacious enough to accommodate an assortment of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. As an added bonus, the Keter Really Garden Bed is very easy to assemble, requiring only a screwdriver to attach the legs. This planter’s classic rattan pattern pairs well with most outdoor patio furniture, and you can buy the product in dark brown or dark gray. We’ve seen some reports of products arriving damaged, so be sure to give yours a thorough inspection.

Dimensions: 44.9 x 19.4 x 29.8 inches︱Material: Plastic︱Assembly Required: Yes

The Best Self-Watering Planters for the Busy Gardener

Final Verdict

Our top pick, the Best Choice Products Raised Garden Bed, offers adequate drainage, sturdy weather-resistant construction, and ample growing space for a variety of plants. Though smaller, the City Pickers Patio Raised Garden Bed provides an affordable way to grow plants in limited spaces. Despite its low price, its impressive features include a self-watering system, mulch cover, and aeration screen.

Height

Standard raised ground beds sit directly on the ground and are typically six to eight inches high. Because of their low height, users need to bend or crouch down when tending plants. Elevated raised garden beds offer a growing space at a more comfortable standing or sitting height. These beds have legs or are supported by a stand or trolley. To avoid straining your back while gardening, a raised garden bed is worth considering.

Materials

You can find raised garden beds in a variety of materials, including wood, plastic, metal, steel, and polyethylene. Choose a wood such as cedar or fir that is naturally weather-resistant to create a more traditional, rustic aesthetic. Plastic and polyethylene beds are often more modern or utilitarian in design. If you live in a harsh climate and durability is a top priority, a bed made of galvanized steel is a solid option.

Extra Features

Many raised garden beds have special features to enhance the gardening experience. If you aren’t committed to having a garden in an exact spot, look for a model with wheels. Storage drawers or shelves come in handy to hold trowels, bags of potting soil, and other tools and supplies. If you find your plants are getting too much sun, a removable cover can solve the problem. Multi-tiered raised garden beds allow you to arrange plants in various configurations, and you can stack some to increase the depth.

FAQ

• The ideal growing conditions depend upon the depth of your raised garden bed. For compact herbs, plants, and flowers, the depth can be as little as six to eight inches. Deep-rooted plants, such as eggplant or watermelons, fare better in soil at least 12 to 18 inches deep. McKenzy Winkler, a master gardener and herb farmer based in Pennsylvania, provides the following advice: “Plants that require loose, nutrient-dense soil thrive in raised-bed growing conditions. This includes vegetables like garlic, onions, carrots, and potatoes—anything with a tap root.”

• The type of soil you choose depends on the plants you intend to grow. Some soils are for an assortment of plants, while others are specially formulated for specific types of plants. A potting mix that gets its nutrients from a variety of sources, including peat, manure, compost, and fertilizer, provides the ideal nutrients for an assortment of plants. To cut down on the cost of soil, Winkler recommends layering big sticks in the bottom of the bed to fill up space.

• Since a raised bed doesn’t require any tilling, you can place one almost anywhere in your yard. That said, make sure your plants are getting the right amount of sunlight. “It’s always preferred to arrange your beds facing a north-south direction,” Winkler says.

This article was written by Sage McHugh, a lifestyle writer for The Spruce who specializes in the home and garden sector. To select the best raised garden beds, Sage considered dozens of products, carefully evaluating their size, material, assembly requirements, and special features. For expert insight, she interviewed McKenzy Winkler, a master gardener and herb farmer based in Pennsylvania. 

Article Sources

The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Gardening Doesn’t Have to Give You Lower Back Pain. Cleveland Clinic.

10 Raised Bed Garden Ideas

From DIY projects to store-bought kits, use these raised bed garden ideas to take your garden to a new height!

Every editorial product is independently selected, though we may be compensated or receive an affiliate commission if you buy something through our links. Ratings and prices are accurate and items are in stock as of time of publication.

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Courtesy @thekiwihome/Instagram

Copper Raised Garden Bed

A copper raised garden bed would be elegant, but copper is prohibitively expensive. Instead, try this trick from @thekiwihome. She purchased a galvanized steel tub, then gave it a makeover with copper spray paint. Now it looks the part without the steep price tag! She also added drainage holes and casters so the bed can be moved as needed.

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Courtesy @tohavetohost/Instagram

Wood Raised Garden Bed

A professional woodworker crated these raised beds from @tohavetohost. But you can build a wood raised garden bed yourself. Cedar or redwood work best because both are naturally rot resistant. Or purchase a wood raised garden bed kit to make it even easier.

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Courtesy @myfirstbackyard/Instagram

Cinder Block Raised Garden Bed

Make a raised bed garden like this one from @myfirstbackyard with concrete cinder blocks. Cheap, easy and no digging required — just build it on top of the ground. This is a great choice if you’ve got hard soil you don’t want to dig up. Decorate the blocks with outdoor paint to give your raised garden bed an artistic finish!

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Courtesy @metalgardenbeds/Instagram

Galvanized Steel Raised Garden Bed

Galvanized steel works because it’s resistant to rust and extremely durable. The steel also reflects heat, making your soil the ideal temperature for growing. These garden beds from @metalgardenbeds come with 26-gauge steel walls, corners and all the hardware you need to put them together.

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via merchant

Tiered Raised Garden Bed

A raised garden on different levels, like this one from Plow & Hearth, lets you separate your plants for visual interest and easy identification. The tiers offer three planting depths to accommodate different root needs. And if your flowers or vegetables have different soil requirements, fill each box with the appropriate type of soil.

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Family Handyman

DIY Stacked-Stone Raised Garden Bed

The natural edges of this rough-cut stone raised garden bed gives it an organic look that blends seamlessly into the rest of the yard. This project doesn’t require any special skills, just some muscle to lift the stones. The only specialty tool you’ll need is a diamond blade in your circular saw.

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Family Handyman

DIY Corrugated Metal and Wood Raised Garden Bed

Here’s another raised garden bed you can build yourself with corrugated metal sheets and pressure-treated wood. Keep in mind, filling this planter requires almost a cubic yard of soil. To save money, fill the lower half with another material, like plastic milk jugs (with caps screwed on tight) or plastic buckets placed upside down.

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via merchant

PVC Raised Garden Bed

For a raised garden bed you can put together in minutes, check out this Deluxe Raised PVC Garden Bed. It features an easy snap-in-place assembly system, with no tools required! The high walls (15-1/2-inches), made of durable, maintenance-free UV-resistant polymer plastic, allow for deep-soil gardening.

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DigiPub/Getty Images

Brick Raised Garden Bed

A raised garden bed or path made from bricks or pavers is sturdy and long-lasting. As the bricks age with time, the material takes on more character, giving your garden space old world charm. The octagon shape makes an eye-catching statement and provides plenty of angles to tend to your plants.

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fotolinchen/Getty Images

Woven Willow Raised Garden Bed

Woven willow garden beds and fences (AKA wattle) transform your basic garden into an enchanting English one. Aesthetically, the organic material blends seamlessly with the rest of the landscape. And it’s great for your plants because the woven branches insulate the soil and allow good drainage and airflow.

Originally Published: May 24, 2022

Erica Young

Erica Young is a freelance writer and content creator, specializing in home and lifestyle pieces. She loves writing about home decor, organization, relationships, and pop culture. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication.

28 Best DIY Raised Bed Garden Ideas & Designs

28 Best DIY raised bed garden ideas: easy tutorials & designs to build raised beds or vegetable & flower garden box planters with inexpensive materials!

In case you missed part 1, here it is. It covers the important basics of building a durable and productive raised bed, such as planning, material selections, designs and tips on how to fill your raised beds!

Today we will look at some inspiring DIY raised bed projects, such as simple wood raised beds, no-build fabric planters, easy cinder block garden beds, and many creative garden box ideas.

Before we explore all the best DIY raised garden beds, the first thing to keep in mind is: soil building is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of a great raised bed garden!

One of our favorite methods is to dig in kitchen scraps each week, and they turn into compost after 1-2 weeks!

* Some resources in article are affiliate links. Full disclosure here .

This book Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling talks about a great method to build good soil using readily available materials, such as kitchen scraps, cardboard, mulch, yard trimmings etc, without too much hard work!

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens ( Images: Ecofilms |Millhollow Works | Polivka )

Now let’s look at how to build DIY raised beds to grow abundant veggies herbs and flowers in our backyard gardens!

Simple raised bed with 4×4 posts

A simple construction of wood raised bed using 4×4 posts and 2×6 boards. Cedar and redwood are naturally rot-resistant, and great lumber choices for years of gardening. ( Image: Vegetable Gardener )

As you can see the hardware cloth keeps pests such as gophers from eating the plants.

Super easy fabric raised planters

I am always excited to discover new & inexpensive raised garden bed ideas and designs! Theses fabric planters are so easy to install and you can have a raised bed garden without any building skills! You can also find many size fabric pots from 1 gallon to 30 gallon! Below is a video by High Caliper Growing to see it in action!

These small and portable raised beds are great for lettuce, peas, beans, herbs, salad greens, onions, etc. For veggies with deep root system such as potatoes and carrots, you will want to use a raised bed without a bottom or make it deeper.

How to build simple wood garden boxes

This raised bed is made of 2×6 planks and 2×2 braces. The braces are optional supports that prevent the boards from warping or twisting.( Image: BHG )

Raised bed garden with hoop house attachments.

A raised bed with a greenhouse tunnel on top! Love the addition of PVC pipes held upright to the inside of the bed with steel tube straps like these. A hoop house can be created using smaller diameter PVC or wires. ( Image: Sunset)

Easy DIY raised garden box designs

Add 2×4 or 2×6 caps to give these raised beds an attractive look. These open bottom raised beds are good for growing anything, including veggies with deep root system such as potatoes and carrots. (Source:  Chris loves Julia | Popular Mechanics )

Stacked wood raised garden planter box

Remember these gorgeous raised beds from Part one: All About Raised Garden Beds? They are made from 4x6s. Below is a tutorial on how to make the from 6x6s, which is the same process.

Waist height raised planter ideas

Building the raised bed to a counter height of 36″ will make it so much easier to garden for seniors, and people who have physical discomfort in their back or knees.

Two really simple and nice DIY raised beds. I would increase the depth on the first one, and add weed barrier landscape fabric at the bottom to both. ( Source: Instructables )

DIY elevated wood garden boxes

3 variations of the elevated planter box: add shelves for storage or casters for mobility. Images: Addicted2Decorating and Instructables.

Portable raised planter boxes

There are lots of attractive garden box variations. You can add wheels or shleves to make them more user friendly. (Source: Ebay | Gardeners)

Elevated pallet wood planters

Wouldn’t this beautiful planter at Williams Sonoma make a great gift for a garden lover? If you are thinking about DIY, someone at Instructables figured out how to build these beautiful raised beds using wood pallets!

Here’s our favorite tool for taking apart pallets – an awesome deck wrecker!

And a detailed guide all about finding and working with pallets!

Detailed guide all about finding and working with pallets

Raised bed garden with fencing and benches.

Video tutorial on how to build a raised bed with benches!

Add fencing to your raised beds to keep out deer and rabbits! You can also add benches to a raised bed for the perfect place to sit and enjoy the garden, or set tools and snacks for the gardener! ( Images: Bonnie Plants )

Tiered raised bed planters for patio and porch

This stepped wood planter herb garden looks beautiful in a corner space and This ladder shaped tiered planter is great for small space growing.

Use inexpensive or free materials to build durable raised bed gardens

Tree logs can provide just the right height for a raised bed. Terracotta pipes become little pots and walls for a raised bed. Or build this chic raised bed with cobble stones and landscape block construction adhesive

DIY galvanized metal

raised bed

Corrugated metal raised bed looks so gorgeous! Just be very careful- they can be sharp on the cut edges. Use wood trim to cover the cut sharp edges when building! (Via MK Library)

Wood and metal raised garden bed

Another great looking variation of DIY metal planter box. ( Source: Aristata )

Galvanized metal

garden boxes with trellis

Add a trellis structure to a raised planter for added function and curb appeal! (Via Plantlust | Blueberry Hill )

Trough raised bed

Isn’t this farmhouse galvanized tank planter bed stylish? Don’t forget to drill some drain holes!

Used tires upcycled into raised garden planters

An used tire can become an instant raised bed garden. These painted tires are so cheerful and pretty! Many gardeners do not think it’s good to grow vegetables and food crops in old tires as there could be harmful chemicals leached ino the soil. But you can always grow ornamental gardens in rubber tires!

Concrete block raised beds

Concrete block (aka cinderblock, CMU ) are great building materials for DIY raised beds. You can make lots of creative designs with them. The first one is by VermiBag on YouTube, see video tutorial below. ( The second image is from Pinterest, original source lost. Please let me know if you find it! )

You can add caps to make your cinder block raised beds more attractive, and double function as a seating bench. ( Via Fab Everyday )

Concrete blocks filled with soil make a sturdy border and additional planting pockets. The key is to take the time and prepare the ground to be level.   ( Source: Houzz )

Love these U-shape cinder block garden bed designs! ( Via Instructables | Shelly Michel )

Straw bale above ground garden beds

IMPORTANT: ( Thanks to our reader Jonh for this tip!) If you are interested in using strawbale in your vegetable garden, please make sure the straw comes from a field that wasn’t sprayed with persistent herbicides, which can inhibit plant growth! The best places to get straw bales for gardening is from local farms that practice sustainable, organic, or regenerative farming!

There are two ways to create raised beds with straw bales. The one above uses straw bales as a border. The method below uses straw bales as vessel and growing medium to grow a productive raised bed vegetable garden.

The pioneer of this method, Joel Karsten, wrote an excellent book – Straw Bale Gardens Complete , which gives all the details on straw bale gardening.

Straw Bale Gardens Complete Book ( Images from book by Joel Karsten )

Below is a video on how it works.

If you have been thinking about starting a garden, I think a raised bed garden is a great way to go!

You may also like these 32 creative planters made from up-cycled objects:

And 21 DIY greenhouses with great tutorials.

Or this article on how to find, select and build with pallets!

Happy building and growing! xo

15 Best Raised Bed Ideas

Every item on this page was chosen by The Pioneer Woman team. The site may earn a commission on some products.

It’s planting season!

By
The Pioneer Woman Staff

Apr 26, 2022

Getty Images

Whether you’re an experienced gardener or just getting started, planting in raised beds is an excellent way to control weeds and maximize your growing space. Beyond being a great landscaping idea, it can also help extend your garden’s season, since soil in a raised bed will stay warmer for longer. And it’s a great way to start a vegetable garden if your soil isn’t in the best shape.

Building your own raised beds out of two-by-fours is a straightforward approach, but there are so many other ways you can get the same effect—and some of them won’t even require fancy garden tools or a trip to the hardware store. If bending down to tend a raised bed that’s low to the ground isn’t great for your back, check out the raised bed ideas ahead! They’ll help you build taller, more accessible garden plots. Have an old piece of furniture laying around the house? You can probably turn that into a raised bed, too.

Keep reading to learn more about these genius ideas for building a raised bed garden, then get ready to break out your garden shoes and pull on garden gloves, because they’re definitely going to inspire you to get some plants in the ground.

Anika’s DIY Life

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Stack Your Beds Using a Trellis

This clever setup is a great way to maximize your growing space while also allowing climbing plants to thrive. By stacking two narrow raised beds on top of one another, you can plant more in the same area, and the trellis is perfect for peas, beans, and cucumbers.

Get the tutorial at Anika’s DIY Life.

Empress of Dirt

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Sew a Grow Bag

This idea is perfect for anyone who’s more comfortable with a needle and thread than a toolbox. Grow bags are a lightweight alternative to traditional raised beds since you can make them in just about any shape or size, and move them around with ease.

Get the tutorial at Empress of Dirt.

Garden Betty

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Repurpose a Vintage Bathtub

If you’re into the vintage aesthetic, then you’ll love this idea for a no-dig garden Simply clean out an old bathtub, place it in your yard, and fill it with soil. Your plants will be flourishing in no time.

Get the tutorial at Garden Betty.

Cynthia Weber Design

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Plant your garden in metal troughs

Another great no-dig option is to buy some metal troughs and use them as raised bed planters. Because metal troughs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, this is a great option for anyone who wants to use several planters.

Get the tutorial at Cynthia Weber.

Chicken Street

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Make a Green Roof for a Chicken Coop

If you have chickens, you’ll want to check out this awesome DIY, which can also be built on top of a bunny hutch.

Get the tutorial at Chicken Street.

Creative Green Living

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Upcycle an Old Table

If you have an old table laying around, check out this tutorial to learn how to turn it into a raised bed for growing lettuce. Not only does it look beautiful, it’s also an amazing way to have garden-fresh salad greens on hand at all times.

Get the tutorial at Creative Green Living.

Homemade by Carmona

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Install a Critter-Proof Cover

There’s nothing more heartbreaking than growing vegetables only to have animals eat them before you get the chance. The best way to prevent it? A critter-proof cover, like this one.

Get the tutorial at Homemade by Carmona.

Tidbits Cami

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Build your Beds Taller

If leaning down to tend to a low raised bed is hard on your body, here is a tutorial on how to build tall raised beds, which are easier to plant and weed since they’re built to be around waist height.

Get the tutorial at Tidbits Cami.

Homestead and Chill

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Add Fairy Lights

Create an enchanting atmosphere with this simple idea. All you need are some fairy lights or LED rope lights to wrap around the outside of your raised beds to turn your garden into a fairytale landscape.

Get the tutorial at Homestead and Chill.

A Pumpkin and a Princess

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Repurpose an Old Storage Cart

Here is an idea to breathe new life into an old storage cart by turning it into a tiered flower garden. Since it’s already on wheels, it’s easy to move this portable raised bed to maximize sun exposure.

Get the tutorial at A Pumpkin and a Princess.

Garden Therapy

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Construct a Vertical Garden

Here is another solution for anyone who has a hard time leaning down to work in a low raised bed: Build up, not out! This vertical garden is just as easy to construct as a standard raised bed, but can also help maximize your space.

Get the tutorial at Garden Therapy.

The House That Lars Built

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Make a patio garden with teracotta pots

If all you have is a patio space, check out this genius idea for a making a terra-cotta pot garden. It offers many of the same benefits of a standard raised bed layout, but requires no tools to put together. It’s perfect for flowers, tomatoes, and other plants that do well in pots.

Get the tutorial at The House That Lars Built.

Blooming Homestead

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Use an oversized wooden bucket

Another simple solution for a no-tools, no-digging garden! Here, oversized wooden buckets stand in for typical raised bed planters.

Get the tutorial at Blooming Homestead.

Houseful of Handmade

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Put in a Drip Watering System

Keep garden maintenance low-key and ensure happy plants throughout the season by installing a DIY drip watering system.

Get the tutorial at Houseful of Handmade.

Over the Big Moon

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Use Garden Markers

Once you have your raised beds constructed, you’ll want to make sure to label them so you don’t loose track of your seedlings. These adorable hand-painted garden markers are a fun idea.

Get the tutorial at Over the Big Moon.

Treat Your Mom to a Perfect Mother’s Day Lunch

15 Raised Bed Garden Design Ideas

15 Raised Bed Garden Design Ideas

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The raised beds in your garden can be as modest or as creative as you like. A raised bed can be a permanent fixture for planting and maturing perennials.

High beds are functional in care, the earth in them warms up better by the sun and, finally, it’s just aesthetically pleasing.
The initial cost of installing a raised bed will depend on how carefully you build it, but once installed, raised beds are no more expensive to maintain than regular beds. They offer many benefits.

In these high beds, you can plant not only vegetables and berries, but also make a beautiful flower garden out of them.

What is a high garden bed?

High bed gardening involves growing plants in soil that is above the ground. Most often, you can do this with some kind of railing or frame made from wood, stone, hay bales, or even recycled material like old chests of drawers.

01. Raised Brick Bed

Miles Garden Design

By making a raised bed, instead of burrowing into the ground, you can place it where sun or shade is best for the plants you want to grow. You can also prevent tunnel pests such as moles from destroying your plants.

Plants can be healthier and more productive in a raised bed because you can control soil quality and water runoff. If you make the sides wide enough to make a bench, you can even sit and garden. For those with back problems, this makes plant care easier.

02. Sheet Metal Beds

Garden Beds

Another great benefit of high bed beds is that they sit well above the frost line so the soil warms up faster in spring and you can start planting faster. The metal will ensure that the ambient solar heat is retained in the soil. Sheet metal is easier to form into shapes. It’s also a great way to provide the warmth you need to grow Mediterranean plants like sage and lavender.

03. Rectangular beds with wooden sides

Patrick / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Gardening in rectangular and square beds involves dividing the growing area into small square or rectangular plots. The goal is to create a heavily planted vegetable garden or a highly productive vegetable garden.

The use of a high bed for growing vegetables allows you to control the quality of the soil and prevent its compaction. Vegetable roots can grow unhindered. The beds don’t have to be very high off the ground to get the benefits of being in a high bed. Even 15-20 cm can be enough.

04. Spiral beds and flower beds

Mill Creek Gardens

Spiral gardens are a popular gardening solution. They increase usable planting area without taking up more space in your garden. You can easily build them out of stone, brick, wood, or just fill with dirt. The unusual shape and swirl of the plants make it an attractive focal point in your garden. There are plants and flowers in this photo, but you can grow anything using the spiral design.

05. High bed with greenhouse

Klavdia Petrovna Limbinshtein’s Garden

With a little advance planning, you can create a multi-season vegetable garden. Raised beds give you more control over the growing conditions in your garden and make it harder for animals and pests to get to your vegetables. If you build a greenhouse on a high bed, you can be prepared for any weather, withstand frost and give yourself a head start in the spring.

06. Raised beds on slopes

Raised beds are great for steep yards. By building beds in the lowest parts, you can create the illusion of a flat garden. Make your flower beds wide enough so that you still have a tiered flower bed with a shrub border framing the back of the garden, and enough room for perennials to provide colors, textures, and softening drapery edges.

07. Vegetable garden in a trough

Beautiful artificial creations

The photo shows one of the easiest ways to create high beds using animal feeders or galvanized tubs. No assembly is required, but be sure to drill some drainage holes in the bottom before adding soil. Metal gives the garden an industrial look and conducts heat, warming the soil in spring. Depending on what you choose to grow, your plants may need a little extra water during the hottest part of the summer.

08. Custom raised beds

Pyotr Doneganov Landscape Ltd.

Raised beds are suitable for almost any space. With a little creativity, you can create an entire garden nook to relax in. These multi-level high beds incorporate the simple straight lines of Peter Doneganov’s landscape design.

Complete with pot and lamppost. Add a bench, like the one at the end of the front garden, and you have room for outdoor dining areas. As the plants grow and the wood weathers, this garden will take on a natural rustic look.

09. High Bed Gazebo

Walk and Enjoy

Using a high bed arbor or trellis makes harvesting vegetables even easier and keeps them neater than if they were spread out on the ground. Vertical gardening allows you to grow more plants without taking up much space.

This example from Family Food Gardens shows that whether you’re growing flowering vines or spreading vegetables, this tepee garden trellis creates a living pergola that gives the vines plenty of access to sunlight without shading the plants in the high beds below. Your design can be as simple as creating an A-frame out of two bamboo poles, tying them together and stringing a garden net.

10. Architectural layout

Horticulture Choice

Small gardens can often appear cluttered and abandoned. In contrast, the tall flower beds along this path in the garden look well thought out. You can even plan your plantings to provide four seasons of visual interest as shown in this small garden.

Form any shape of beds with brick, pavers or composite decking material. Not only do they define the space, but they also make the garden appear larger, breaking up the view and providing an extra seating area in the shady part of the garden.

11. Colorful concrete block garden

Inspired by house design

There are many ways to build raised beds with recycled materials. Concrete blocks are among the most popular. This gardener from Home Designed Inspired has taken it one step further and spruced up his block garden with a bit of bright paint. Please note that some old cinder blocks may contain fly ash, which is the “ash” left over from burning coal.

There is still some debate as to whether it is safe to use around edible plants. If you get new blocks made from concrete, you can avoid the ash problem. New blocks are much heavier than old cinder blocks, but they can be used for a vegetable garden. However, be careful – concrete blocks release lime. Lime can raise the pH of the soil. To be safe, use plants that do well in alkaline soil.

12. Multi-level raised beds

Main Stratosphere

Raised beds have very few restrictions. This multi-tiered high bed from Home Stratosphere looks like a pagoda or a fountain. When the flowers have grown, you may not even see the beautiful wooden frame supporting them. It looks good all year round. During the holidays, you can also decorate it with seasonal greenery and decorations and give it a Christmas tree feel.

13. Garage Doors Converted into Raised Beds

Cottage Life

Search your warehouse or secondhand stores for items that can be made into attractive, easy-to-build raised beds. A gardener from outside Moscow created his vegetable garden from several vinyl garage door panels attached to resin-reinforced vinyl fence posts and ends.

This raised bed is attractive, requires little maintenance, requires no waterproofing or painting, and will last longer than most wood products.

14. Recessed Raised Bed

Pixabay.com

Instead of just terracing the entire area of ​​a sloped yard, you can create your garden at eye level. Maria Mikhailova photographed this recreation area at the level of the hillside. The stone patio and retaining walls create an inviting garden path and seating area surrounded by raised beds. This scene required a lot of soil and masonry removal, but it’s a solution for years to come.

15. Food boxes in the garden

Uncle Vasya’s garden

Redesign food boxes and make portable raised beds. This raised food crate bed is easy to set up and you can shape it into any shape you like. If you need plants closer to home or want to place them in a more shaded area, just grab a box and move it.

These containers are already supplied with drainage holes. And when you need to change the soil, you can simply lift the bin, dump the contents into the compost pile, and start over.

Look how beautiful the high beds of food boxes look on the garden plot of Uncle Vasya, the former caretaker of the food warehouse.

7 photo ideas how to organically fit the beds into the design of the garden plot

It’s time to try something new and create a beautiful and fashionable composition instead of the usual beds. Do you think it will take too much time and effort? It all depends on which option you choose. But the result will surely surprise you!

There are three main areas in the landscape design of a summer cottage: for working on the ground, for recreation, and a combined area where you can relax among planted vegetables and herbs. In each of these territories, it is worth creating something unusual, for example, organically fit designer beds.

Any summer resident can realize this task. Soil, plants, various materials are already on your site. And if something is missing, it is always easy to exchange it with neighbors or buy it in addition. Most importantly, do not think that you will need big expenses. Everything can be done inexpensively and with fiction!

How to make garden beds with your own hands

First of all, you need to decide how to properly arrange the beds on the site. This should be done taking into account the above zones. Choose a well-lit place in advance, where there is enough territory for both beds and paths. If your goal is to get a big harvest, place the beds in the places where vegetables are planted. For decorative ridges, choose unthickened places in the recreation area. A lawn or area at the entrance to the site is also suitable.

Six acres will fit up to 4 unusual beds, if you have more space – add new structures. In order not to be mistaken with the calculations, it is better to first take measurements and make a sketch on paper or in a computer program.

To make planting easier, make beds no wider than 70 cm.

What can be planted in a designer garden

A wide variety of vegetable crops can be used to give the garden a decorative look. Plant lettuce, onions, cauliflower, beets in small groups to create a color contrast. Decorative brightly colored peppers, undersized tomatoes, climbing zucchini will also look great.

Win-win – spicy herbs with elegant leaves (thyme, lemon balm, cilantro, parsley, sage, oregano, etc.). Do not forget about garden strawberry bushes, which will look beautiful along the edges of the garden.

It is not necessary to plant the plants in a line. Make circular compositions with “solo” plants in the center: cabbage, beets, corn. But also consider the location of plantings so that tall vegetables do not shade their short neighbors. If there is no desire to create complex compositions yet, plant plants of only one type.

The garden can also be decorated with flowers, such as calendula or marigold, which will repel harmful insects without depriving the vegetables of nutrients. Rose lovers can place several supports with climbing varieties near the beds.

And now let’s look at the popular design options for beds in the country, which you can implement this season!

Idea 1. Compact plank beds

An easy-to-use and environmentally friendly option – beds made from ordinary boards. In principle, any wooden material is suitable – timber, old lining, slab (side parts of logs), etc. When building such a ridge, take care of its durability. So that the tree does not begin to rot over time, impregnate it with special protective preparations. You can also use cheaper products, for example, copper sulfate. Dip each part of the future bed into it, and then whiten from the outside. The tree is now protected for at least 5 years.

Do not use used motor oil for processing, as harmful chemicals do not get into the vegetables.

Idea 2. Beds with decorative borders

Raise the beds above the soil. With this simple design method, you will decorate any landscape. Plastic or glass bottles, wicker elements, pieces of slate, etc. are useful as a material. Installing the sides is quite simple – drive in the elements in a circle, having previously made the markup. If the structure is quite massive, dig small ditches first so that the sides are stable.

Before use, the material must be carefully sorted out, broken and sharp fragments sorted out, and intact parts cleaned of dirt.

Idea 3.

Raised garden beds – original and reliable

High beds are also called “smart” because they are very easy to care for, no need to bend over and strain your back. And vegetables on such ridges grow strong and healthy. The secret is in a special design that protects plantings from weeds and pests. In addition, the rains of such a bed are not terrible, the soil is not eroded. And on sunny days it warms up evenly. You can make it of any shape – from a rectangle to an intricate polyhedron.

Almost any material is also suitable, the main thing is reliable and durable. Most often, concrete blocks or brickwork are used. If you want to make a wooden structure, then choose a decking board, which is highly durable.

The ideal parameters for a high bed are up to 1 m in height and up to 90 cm in width. This will make it easier to take care of the plants.

Idea 4. Beds in containers and pots

This planting of garden plants will become a feature of your site. Containers made of plastic, wood and other materials are compact and portable. They can be exposed to the sun and removed from the site during the rain. Old clay pots, unnecessary basins and barrels will also come into play. The cultivation of vegetables in bags has not lost its relevance yet. In a word, turn on your imagination and see what is lying around in the shed idle!

We do not recommend using car tires for landing, because. they release toxic substances into the soil.

Idea 5. Multi-tiered beautiful garden beds

If there is not much free space on the site, try making a multi-tiered bed. It will take a little more time to create it, because. it requires installation, but the finished design will turn out to be practical and original. By the way, multi-tiered frames can often be found in specialized stores. And some summer residents successfully adapt wooden boxes for such ridges.

Root crops or zucchini are best on the lower tier, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and greens on the middle tier. And on the highest sites, plant climbing crops, for example, cucumbers or beans. When the crop is harvested, empty spaces can be filled with flowers.

Idea 6. Exclusive garden beds that will transform any garden

Do not know how to beautifully arrange the beds on the site? Try to create a garden bed from improvised materials, for example, use an old boat, having previously filled it with soil. Or put together garden tables that will surprise your neighbors and guests. If an old rusty bathtub is lying around in the basement, you can also decorate it by making a garden bed with vegetables inside.

Intricate geometric compositions that are easy to confuse with flower beds will look original. But as soon as you get closer, it becomes clear that this is a mini-garden!

Idea 7. Beautiful paths between the beds in the country

Paths between beds can also be made unusual – lined with crushed stone, granite, pebbles, sawdust and other improvised materials. Wood saw cuts also look beautiful. And if an artist lives in you, decorate the path with ornaments or panels made of stones, pieces of ceramics, broken pots. Some summer residents even lay old rugs and linoleum. It turns out inexpensive and practical!

Advantages of the decorated paths:

• absence of weeds;
• comfortable conditions for gardening.

If you have ordinary beds, fix the edges of the path with the sides so that it does not spread.

It is possible to grow vegetables in a beautiful way, and you have seen this for yourself by getting acquainted with our photo ideas. There are many more ways to organically fit the beds into the garden plot, so the list of ideas is easy to continue. Bring your creative ideas to life and share successful projects in the comments!

Ideas for creating high beds that will decorate the garden / Homebodies

Who among us has not dug in the garden, cursing everything in the world? For many, a trip to the dacha causes extremely negative emotions associated with the processing of various crops, which can be found in any grocery store all year round.
Most of all (especially young people) the seasonal “potato cycle” infuriates, because in the absence of proper care, root crops grow small and in small quantities, as they say, “planted a bucket – collected a bucket”. This situation can be changed by the so-called high beds – special designs, thanks to which the crop becomes much larger, it is easier to grow it, and such a garden looks neater.

1. Bags of cabbage

High beds made of non-woven fabric.

Nonwoven Raised Beds are perhaps the easiest and most affordable way to create a warm place to grow your plants. By providing regular watering, in this way you can grow any vegetables and root crops.

2. Strawberry garden

Strawberry flower bed from a wooden box.

Growing strawberries in small raised beds greatly simplifies maintenance and increases yields. In our opinion, strawberries in small tall boxes look much prettier and neater than in the usual beds.

3. Garden behind the fence

Tidy garden with raised beds.

If you don’t want to turn your dacha into a solid garden, just separate a piece of land for beds. Behind the fence, install several boxes to create high beds. Buy special soil, select drainage, fertilizers and insulate structures. You will get a neat garden that will save you from exhausting garden work, but will bring a stable rich harvest.

4. Potato box

High wooden bed for potatoes.

Anyone who has ever encountered growing potatoes on the ground knows that they are often attacked by Colorado potato beetles and other pests. If you are not going to grow a whole hectare of potatoes and do not want to spend the whole summer hilling and spraying the beds, the editors recommend paying attention to the high beds. For example, you can put together tall boxes from boards, equip them with doors, insulate them, pick up drainage and plant potatoes. Then all you need is to water the beds on time and prepare for harvest.

5. Cucurbits in bags

Growing melons in bags.

Growing pumpkin crops: watermelons, melons, zucchini, pumpkins in bags is an ideal solution for a gardener. The garden looks neat, the fruits ripen faster, and the plants require minimal maintenance.

6. Pumpkin arch

Pumpkin arch in the garden.

If you are tired of putting up with the fact that your crop of pumpkins, melons or marrows is constantly attacked by pests, it is worth considering an alternative way to grow these crops. To do this, you need to build some kind of arch. Plants will braid the supports, and the fruits will come off the ground and be far from pests.

7. Egg trays

Radish bed in egg trays.

Growing radishes in egg cartons is a unique planting method that can minimize plant care. This way of growing will avoid mulching and constantly maintain the necessary soil moisture.

8. Raised garden

High bed in a wooden box.
From wooden boards, you can make a large high bed for growing a variety of crops. Equip the box with several trellises for climbing plants and divide it into zones. Thus, you will get a neat high garden, which will annually bring a rich, high-quality and early harvest.

9. Profiled sheet beds

High beds from boards and profiled sheets.

High beds made of wooden corners and corrugated board look very stylish and perfectly keep warm. Such containers will serve you for more than one year, will allow you to put the garden in order and greatly facilitate the process of caring for plants.

10. Round beds

Round beds from a professional flooring.

Decking is a flexible material that can take on many shapes, which means beds with corrugated sheets can be round, oval or rounded. This building material is also quite resistant to damage and perfectly retains heat, which makes it ideal for creating a variety of raised beds.

11. Tire garden

High beds in tires.

Enterprising gardeners can use used car tires to create raised beds. The rubber from which the tires are made is durable and perfectly retains heat. This makes old tires a practical and affordable material for creating the popular tall structures for growing crops.

12. Cinder blocks

A bed of cinder blocks.

Gorgeous cinder block bed, painted in bright colors, will not only be a warm place for growing plants, but also a spectacular decoration of the garden area. By the way, flowers can be grown in the holes of cinder blocks, which will make the design even more attractive.

13. Pallets

Different beds from pallets.

Wooden pallets are a versatile item that will come in handy for any summer resident. They can be used not only to create stylish furniture, but also as a material for constructing high beds. For example, horizontal beds are suitable for growing strawberries and lettuce, and high pyramids are suitable for growing tomatoes, sweet peppers and other tall plants.

some ideas for decorating garden beds

Many of us are lucky enough to have a small plot of land – whether it’s a dacha or a piece of land that surrounds our homes. Most owners often prefer to set aside part of this land for a vegetable garden. But few take into account the fact that vegetable plants not only provide us with healthy food, but along with flower beds, they can also decorate a personal plot, become the main element of landscape design. In this article we will consider such an issue as the design of the garden on the site.

Content of Article

• 1 What is a landscape design of a private house
• make a beautiful garden with your own hands
  • 3. 1 Raised (high) beds
  • 3.2 Vertical structures for climbing plants
  • 3.3 Tunnels of arches or pergolas
  • 3.4 Beautiful garden from containers
  • 3.5 Decorative border for beds
  • 3.6 Supplement of beds with flowers
  • 3.7 garden paths in design of the garden

What is the Landscaped Garden of the private house 9000 9000 9000 a row of unremarkable long beds with vegetable crops planted on them. Previously, rarely anyone thought about the aesthetic side of the garden, considering it the main source of plant products for their table.

But today garden beds are becoming the pride of many gardeners and gardeners, who see them not only as a source of food, but also as a functional decorative element of the landscape design of a garden or summer cottage.

The design of the garden has changed a lot over time: it has evolved from simple straight vegetable beds to well-planned plots with thoughtful functionality, ease of care for edible plants. In gardens or in the country, you can often find garden plants grown in containers, on vertical or raised beds. Such designs are not only practical and bring simplicity in caring for vegetables. They become a decorative part of your landscape garden or suburban area.

In Europe, even in the old days, not only parks were decorated, but also garden beds, as part of the garden. In French landscape style, this was given great importance. Yes, and other styles of landscape design also pay a lot of attention to this issue.

Garden landscaping is gaining more and more supporters as the most attractive garden landscape concept of the future. To help you create not only productive, but also beautiful gardens, we have collected some of the interesting garden design ideas and are ready to share with you.

List of the best free landscape design software

In this review, we have described the 12 best applications for landscape designers and ordinary users. In this list you will also find online programs and applications for both computers and smartphones.

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Things to know about gardening

Before you start landscaping or renovating an existing garden or cottage, think about how you want your garden to look and how big it will be. There are three things to consider here:0003

Garden Size

If this is your first time gardening, start small and grow only a few vegetables. A small raised bed is easier to maintain than a large vegetable garden and will give you the opportunity to hone your gardening skills. Once you have one or two gardening seasons under your belt, you can always add more beds, containers, or expand your vegetable growing space.

Location of your beds

Another important nuance when choosing a place for a vegetable garden. Most vegetables, herbs, and fruits require at least eight to ten hours of sunlight each day to produce a good harvest. This is especially important for fruit-bearing crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini. However, areas with less light can also provide us with vegetables, but here we will need to plant shade-tolerant plants such as spinach, lettuce, etc.

Soil fertility necessary for a good harvest of your vegetable plants. More recently, soil testing kits are being used, which can tell you what nutrients to add to the soil, as well as whether soil pH needs to be adjusted.

But it is also worth paying attention to the decorative component of your future beds. After all, everyone wants to create not only a highly productive, but also a beautiful garden near the house or in the country.

A few ideas on how to decorate a beautiful garden with your own hands

We have collected a few ideas on how to arrange a beautiful garden and are ready to share with you.

Raised beds

These can be built in any size you need. In addition, you can place them absolutely anywhere, provided that their location will receive six to eight hours of sunlight per day.

High beds can be placed anywhere: along the wall of the house, in the garden, near the terrace or on the balcony – anywhere. It’s also a great way to define the boundaries of the garden and keep the area clean and tidy. Wherever you decide to place a raised bed, there are plenty of design options and materials to suit it (wood, stone, steel, etc.). The very sight of such beds will certainly decorate your garden. Such practical designs have a number of advantages that are attractive to gardeners: accessibility to plants for those who find it difficult to bend, quick warming up of the soil in spring, absence of weeds, etc.

Learn more about raised beds in our articles

Vertical structures for climbing plants

Dried branches and pegs inserted into the ground or a simple frame with strings for beans or peas – a traditional way to grow crops such as climbing plants legumes. But adding more decorative designs will turn a simple garden bed into a well-groomed beautiful vegetable garden. Install various wooden trellises, small arches or pergolas and other decorative structures for climbing plants.

Adding vertical structures to your garden design has many functional benefits – they allow you to grow more vegetables in less space, provide support for your plants, and add visual height and attention to your garden.

Arch or pergola tunnels

For vertically growing crops such as legumes, cucumbers, tomatoes and vines, a long arch tunnel can be built. These are very simple structures and can be made from different materials – rebar, wood, mesh, plastic pipes, etc. If you already have high beds, you can install such a tunnel between them. A well-supported structure will be a great support for your plants as they grow. Such tunnel arches will become the center of your garden and a place where you can hide from the sun on a hot day.

Beautiful container garden

If you have a small yard or backyard, creating a beautiful container garden is the way to go. Pots of aromatic herbs and rectangular containers of vegetables can be placed anywhere in your yard or yard. Their main advantage is mobility. They can grow both heat-loving peppers and eggplants, which give an earlier harvest than plants in the garden, and other vegetable crops. Containers are often used by owners of large plots, placing them among beds or other structures. Depending on the time of year, they can be installed where there is a lot of sunshine or more shade, depending on the requirements of your vegetable crops. Collected in one place, such a “mobile garden” will also decorate your site.

Decorative garden border

Sometimes the smallest elements of garden decor can brighten up your garden. If you are using ordinary beds, then you should give them a little decor. A small border edging in the form of a decorative border will ennoble your beds. The edging can be made from willow branches in the form of a low hedge, but other materials can be used to create a border – brick, tile, wooden bars or boards. You can also create edging beds with compact vegetables, flowers, or herbs to decorate the edge of the garden. Lettuce, curly parsley, compact cabbage, basil bushes, marigolds, and nasturtium are all great border plants.

Adding flowers to the beds

It sounds strange, but this technique is often used by gardeners. Some flowering plants, such as Marigold, Calendula, some types of Chamomile, repel insect pests from your beds. Planting them in your garden beds will reduce the possibility of harmful insects on your vegetables by an order of magnitude. In addition, these are flowers that will decorate your site.

Garden paths in garden design

A garden path can not only provide convenience for caring for plants, but also decorate your garden. Whatever material you choose for laying the paths between the beds, its presence will already make your beds well-groomed. A well-designed and well-constructed walkway will enhance the functionality of any vegetable garden and decorate any area.

In addition to the above, there are many more ways to decorate the design of the garden in the garden or suburban areas. The use of garden furniture, beautifully equipped greenhouses and greenhouses, the addition of berry and ornamental shrubs, cereal grasses and much more. And remember – the garden should be not only useful but also beautiful.

Flowerbed Design Ideas – Home & Garden

The season of beds and fields is approaching, which means it’s time to start replenishing your arsenal of knowledge in the field of gardening.

In a new review, specific examples will show new, very interesting ways to design green spaces and beds on your site. Happy viewing, folks.

1. Orderly garden

Vegetables in metal and wooden containers.
Instead of randomly planting your entire summer cottage with vegetables, create a neat, fenced garden on your territory, with separate beds for growing different crops. To create such a garden, you will need boards, a grid and available wooden and metal containers. Plank beds dug into the ground are perfect for growing cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, while metal and wooden containers can be used for growing zucchini, pumpkins and herbs.

2. Raised beds with support

Raised beds with a trellis arch.
Cucumbers, melons, legumes and any other creeper plants are very demanding to care for. Such plants need warm soil, plenty of sunlight, and eventually support. For the successful cultivation of such plants, raised beds, which can be made from wooden planks, are best suited. Between the two beds should be placed a trellis from a bent mesh.

3. Spiral beds

Space-saving spiral beds.
On a plot with limited space, it makes sense to build spiral beds. Such structures look very attractive and are perfect for growing greens, herbs, carrots, strawberries and flowers.

4. Raised beds

Raised beds with brick walls.
Bricks and paving slabs can be used to create raised beds. Such a trick will allow you to beautifully zone the garden and will not allow the roots of plants to spread too much, interfering with other crops. In the center of such a garden, you can put a large trough or barrel of water for easy watering.

5. Tapestries

Simple and original tapestries.
Ordinary branches tied with ropes in the form of a wigwam will make wonderful trellises for growing climbing plants.

6. Cinder block bed

Raised cinder block bed.
You can build an original and practical raised bed out of unnecessary cinder blocks. To do this, you need to outline the shape and size of the future beds and arrange the cinder blocks along the intended perimeter, slightly digging them into the ground. Inside the bed, you can cover it with oilcloth or cardboard, cover the bottom with fallen leaves and any organic waste, compost and cover it all with fertile soil. Plants in such a flower bed are not afraid of night frosts and temperature changes that occur in spring.

7. Bright flower beds

Bright raised flower beds.
Raised beds with colorful borders are perfect for growing flowers, herbs and some vegetables. It is much easier to take care of such beds than ordinary ones, and their appearance will please the eye and attract the attention of neighbors.

8. Pallet beds

Pallet garden beds.
Waste wooden pallets can be used to make wonderful garden beds, ideal for growing herbs, herbs and lettuce. Plants in such beds look very neat, and their leaves will not get dirty with earth during the rains.

9. Baskets

Wicker beds.
Literally any container is suitable for creating insulated raised beds. Even banal tomatoes and cabbages will look exquisite in beautiful wicker baskets.

10. Gabion flower bed

High gabion flower bed.
High beds of gabions will be a real highlight of the suburban area. Due to their flexibility, gabions can be used to make various original frames and even create real works of art.

11. Metal bed

Multi-level metal bed.
Sheets of metal can also be used to create beautiful raised beds. For example, using metal sheets, you can create a beautiful multi-level structure for growing flowers and greenery.

12. Lazy garden bed

DIY lazy garden bed.

Make a box of the desired size from the boards with small bars on the sides. The bars need to be dug into the ground after which, be sure to check the sides of the beds with a level. From the inside, to the wooden sides, you need to attach trimmings of PVC pipes for hoops with mesh or film, cover the bottom of the bed with a metal mesh and cover with soil. This design can also be equipped with an automatic irrigation system. The harvest on such a bed will be early and rich, and caring for it will not bring much trouble.

13. Mobile bed

Roller bed.
A small mobile bed made of wooden boards, metal corners and wheels. This design is perfect for growing a small herb garden and allows you to easily move it from place to place.

14. Multi-level bed

Two-level spiral bed.
An original two-level spiral bed, which is very easy to build from small wooden planks. The advantage of this design is that different soils can be used at different levels and a variety of plants can be planted.

15. Bed with shelves

Homemade bed-table.
A beautifully tidy raised bed made from planks of wood and fitted with extra shelves on the sides that can be used to store small gardening tools or to grow small potted plants.

16. Tire beds

Bright flower beds.
You can build original flower beds from unnecessary car tires painted in bright colors, which will become an original decoration of any site.

17. Plastic border

Plastic bottle border.
From plastic bottles dug into the ground, you get an excellent border for fencing beds. Such a trick will allow you to make your garden much more beautiful and tidy, without spending a dime.

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03/24/2017 dom-and-sad

newdom.mirtesen.ru

Design of beds: design of beds in the garden in the country – photos and ideas on how to decorate beautifully

We are for beautiful gardens and orchards. And we strongly advise you to grow “vitamins” in such areas. Let’s talk about the design of beds

Sowing is about to begin, seeds and seedlings are waiting in the wings. It’s time to plan the location of the beds on your site. But after all, the beds do not have to be traditional, namely straight and rectangular, and work in the garden is boring and exhausting. Let’s talk about how beautiful it is to make beds in the garden – photos with design examples are attached.

URBANSCAPING LTD

Ornamental garden
What do landscaping and horticulture have in common? And what to give preference to in your personal plot? After all, you want both. Meanwhile, in Europe, back in the Middle Ages, monks in their cloisters grew vegetables next to roses in beds that could rather be called flower beds. Today, ornamental gardening and horticulture are more popular than ever in the world. The thing is that the design of the beds is a very interesting activity.

Oxford Botanica

Get your garden in shape!
The photo shows an example of how to make beautiful garden beds. The beds were given a shape close to simple geometric shapes. Together they make a thoughtful composition. Geometric contours are the easiest to work with – even a novice gardener can plan any ornamental pattern.

John Kraemer & Sons

Or a light version made up of a circle and diverging trapezoidal rays. Making such beds with your own hands is quite simple. Just try not to make your building look like a baby sun. To do this, you can plant a wonderful fruit bonsai or stamp shrub in the center.

Paintbox Garden

Bosquet-bed
Another idea how to arrange beautiful beds in the country: plant a low hedge of bushes up to 20 cm high as a border. Such a bed is called a bosket-bed, it looks very impressive.

For hedges I can recommend evergreen boxwood. They say that it does not grow in our climate, but in my garden near Moscow it is already experiencing its fourth winter. Just keep it warm in winter.

Chaos in the middle of the lawn
Another easy-to-make trendy garden concept is to plant any kind of plants in groups against the backdrop of a green lawn.

Let’s look at the photo: the British, in contrast to the French with their severity, appreciate in their garden randomly planted shrubs, trees spread right in the middle of the lawn.

By the way, about the lawn. In the English garden style, it is present everywhere, even among the beds. However, it must be neatly trimmed and lined with a carpet! To the question asked by the British working in the palace garden, “why have you had such a magnificent lawn for 100 years, what is your secret”? They replied: “There is no secret. We just take care of him every day.”

WA Design Architects

Elevating your garden bed
It is very unusual (and extremely easy to care for) to build your own decorative vegetable garden from raised beds. Use box beds. They have the right boundaries, which opens up unthinkable scope for country creativity. By combining boxes of different heights, painting them in new colors, every year you can create beautiful beds and interesting compositions in your own garden.

Rob Kyne

Nicolock Paving Stones and Retaining Walls

These beds, by the way, grow the most abundant crops, because they warm up much faster than usual.

To make an unusual decoration of the beds with your own hands (as in the photo), you can use not only factory containers, but also everything that you have at hand – barrels, basins, carts, etc. Just let your imagination run wild.

Le jardinet

Flower bed or vegetable bed?
The names are not so important – the bottom line is that many vegetables look very decorative and can complement and effectively decorate your flower garden.

Your possibilities are unlimited. Plant beetroots, carrots, lettuce, ditsendra flower and juniper “Anna Maria” in one flowerpot – and a designer flower bed will appear on your site.

Fall Creek Farm & Nursery, Inc.

A bush in a flowerpot
An amazing thing that has been tested on our own experience – in our Central Russian conditions, you can plant remontant strawberries, raspberries and other favorite berries not on a traditional garden bed, but in several most beautiful flowerpots.

Fall Creek Farm & Nursery, Inc.

They must be mobile so that in autumn you can take them to a heated bright veranda, and later decorate your New Year’s cake with berries.

Yes, remontant bushes in the warmth will bear fruit all year round!

Fall Creek Farm & Nursery, Inc.

And with the first spring sun (and for the whole summer until late autumn), arrange flowerpots along the paths, or maybe next to a pergola or a bench. Unearthly beauty!

Pennsylvania Landscape & Nursery Association

Grow herbs and herbs
If space for beds on your site is sorely lacking, switch to vertical gardens. A small plot is no reason to refuse spinach, basil, arugula and other usefulness. After all, there are wall and hanging beds. Let’s approach the issue with ingenuity, competently use fences and any vertical space.

Bright Green

My friend, for example, made herself such a mini-garden in the kitchen. There she grows spicy spices that do not grow in our open field (thyme, oregano, rosemary, etc.). So she treats her family with delicious and fragrant dishes all year round.

Deborah Cerbone Associates, Inc.

The garden decorates you – you make it
And a couple of tips in the end. With all the variety of options, your trendy garden should match the overall style of the garden.