Raised flower/ garden bed

[jhall]

I am making a raised flower bed for the misses.  It's on a gental slope.  It's going to be about 6 inches above grass.  Any one have ideas on meterial?  Hopping to get about ten years out of it.

 

[awdriven]

Redwood, cypress, cedar and white oak are four woods that are pretty rot resistant.

I just built a raised bed garden out of white oak a couple weeks ago. I have a pretty good source and they sell me green lumber. It shrinks a bit as it dries, but it's fine for outdoor projects like this.

In my case, I wanted to make it pretty high so it would be easier to work and away from varmints. (and my dog). I built it out of true 2x10 stock and 3x3 stock for the corner blocks. I just butted the boards and used Timberlok screws to attach them to the corner blocks.

You'll need to level your building site or at least get it relatively close. I'd dig some material out from the high area and move it to the low area that your garden will occupy.

 

[Holzhacker]

Try gardenraisedbeds.com, The Farmstead
We have a few of these, very cool and good prices. Cypress, mortise and tenon, no hardware, different sizes
I have too many other projects to get done to build raised beds.

 

[dwillis]

My brother just built a garden full of raised beds using pressure treated lumber, steel straps in the corners, and 1/4" chicken wire in the bottoms to keep the voles (not moles) out.

 

[upscale]

I am making a raised flower bed for the misses.  It's on a gentle slope.   It's going to be about 6 inches above grass.  Any one have ideas on material?  Hoping to get about ten years out of it.

Here's a few kits that might peak your interest.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?cat=2&p=44664

 

[jhall]

Thanks,  those all look good.  I think I am going with red wood and red wood steaks. 

 

[awdriven]

That design with the through tenon is cool. I considered it for mine, but it was going to add time to the build and it makes access from the sides tougher with the tenon sticking out.

 

[jhall]

Thinking about using the domino for the 45 degree joint.  Is it worth using the sipo tenons?

 

[awdriven]

Are you looking at using a kit with some corner brackets or putting together something like I did with corner posts? I'd just keep it simple and use some butt joints. Miters look tidy at first, but your stock gets very thin out at the long points of the miter and eventually I think the join will just open up a bit and look messy. A butt joint would probably hold up better to the occasional knock from the lawn tractor.

 

[awdriven]

If you use dominoes, definitely use SIPO dominoes. I think regular dominoes are beech and they'd rot out.

 

[awdriven]

This is another interesting kit that I saw while I was deciding what to do earlier this year.

http://www.naturalyards.com/

 

[jhall]

the finished flower bed.  I used dominos to join the red wood and to inforce the corner.

 

[jhall]

and the bench  used dominos and clamped.