Why Do I Need Raised Beds? Do I Need Raised Beds?

Why Do I Need Raised Beds? Do I Need Raised Beds?
By Michael J McGroarty

There are three primary reasons for building raised beds.

1. For things like vegetable gardening having a raised bed can be take some of the stress off or your back if you have a weak back. But of course, building a raised bed usually requires some work so it's not something that you want to do if you don't have to. But if it's next to impossible for you to get down that low, or not good for you to kneel, then having somebody help you build a raised bed could be the best thing in the world for you.

2. Poor soil! If you have really poor soil in your yard and plants just don't grow all that well, building a raised bed allows you to fill that bed with rich soil that is loaded with organic matter. If you have really good soil in your raised bed that drains well you can water as needed and not be concerned about things getting too wet, or worse, staying wet for too long. When installing landscapes, and I've landscaped well over 500 homes in my career, I always raised the beds for these two reasons. In many cases the soil is poor, so I want nice soil to plant in so the landscape plants thrive. And secondly is the aesthetic appeal that a raised bed provides.

Aesthetics.

3. One of the primary reasons that we create raised beds when landscaping is because when the bed is raised you can do a better job of showing off the beautiful plants in the landscape. If you just mark out a bed around your house and plant the shrubs you lose the stair step effect of good landscaping. You should look at landscaping as a set of steps. From the street the first step is lawn, the second is the raised bed, the third the low growing shrubs in the very front of the landscape, the fourth the medium growing shrubs in the middle of the landscape planting and fifth being the taller shrubs in the back of the landscape.

Are raised beds always a good idea?

No they are not. I know that might come as a shock to a lot of folks, but raised beds are not always a good idea and sometimes they are a terrible idea. Why is that?

Cold weather!

One of the things that we come to understand very quickly in the nursery business is that the during the winter, the earth is warm, the air is cold. The closer you can keep things to the earth, the warmer they area. We never put plants on pallets or any other raised area for the winter. We want the bottom of the containers touching the soil. It makes all the difference in the world.

In my nursery I actually have an under ground bunker that I dug out and I use it to store bare root plants during the winter. It's not all that big, probably about 8' long and 36" wide and only 24" to 30" deep, but when I put things in there they do not freeze.

So make a mental note of that. The earth is warm. The farther you get from the surface of the earth, the colder things are. And the drier they are!

During the winter dry is not a good thing.

That's another thing you ought to know. During the winter plants need to be hydrated. That's why they are always much better outside in a protected area than they are in a shed or a garage. Believe it or not, the air inside of a building is much drier than the air outside. And I'm talking about an Unheated Building. It's still dry.

The closer to the earth the warmer plants are, and the more moist they are. They like that. It makes them happy.

Can a raised bed be too high?

Technically, a raised bed can be too high. It puts the plants at risk because they can dry out more easily and they will freeze harder, go through the freeze thaw cycle more often.

Taking advantage of ground heat.

Don't over look how much trouble I go to take advantage of ground heat here in the nursery. All of our containers are below grade because I do not cover them for winter. But again, my soil drains, so I know they won't be too wet. All of our containers sit on the ground, never up on a raised surface of any kind. I often buy plants during the winter that get shipped to me bare root, they go underground so they can't freeze.

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