My gardening friend and neighbour called me to day to let me know she has plants ready for me and after me filling her in on the lack of garden beds (yet) and large dips and holes in the lawn etc. she suggested I order some really good soils (one for garden, one for lawn). One soil would fill the holes in the lawn which is what I had figured I had to do, the other she said I could get enough to make a sort of raised bed (no border on it) about a foot deep. I would just put it right over the grass where I want a bed and plant away.
She said she did this with a couple of beds and by the next year the ground had settled to a few inches, the plants were established and the grass was dead and basically acting as compost. After a couple of years of doing that she added the border to hold the soil in but basically it meant no digging (which kills my back).
Now this makes a whole lot of sense to me given my serious lack of wanting to do digging right now and having a big want for some beds and plants (especially since they are available and free). Meanwhile, it flies in the face of my belief that one had to dig pretty deep to make room for future roots and such but then again, I'm not any sort of expert gardener.
So, do you think this would work? It would be easy to order a delivery and just move it and dump it especially given there used to be a trailer in the back (the cause of the dips) so the fence opens.
Comment Guidelines
We welcome your feedback on Houseandhome.com. H&H reserves the right to remove any unsuitable personal remarks made about the bloggers, hosts, homeowners and/or guests we feature. Please keep your comments focused on decorating, design, cooking and other lifestyle topics. Adopt a tone you would be willing to use in person and do not make slanderous remarks or use denigrating language. If you see a comment that you believe violates any of the guidelines outlined above, please click “Alert a Moderator.” Thank you.
You might really enjoy having some raised beds one day. My girlfriend has a large one built to freestand against the side of her house in the back yard, and it looks so easy to manage. I wanted to do that along the side of my house too, but it's just not affordable for me right now. I want one tall enough so that the edge can serve as a bench seat.
Dawn you sound like me before the back became a big issue which is why this makes me nervous. Meanwhile, after condsidering how many times I completely sifted beds for weed roots and they still came back, I'm thinking it may be worth a try to go the easy route.
Luckily where I want to try it there are no walks, the ground is relatively flat and is either grass or will butt up to the garage wall (all cement in that area so it should be okay)
Although I know this works for some people, I'm pretty anal about removing grass when I make a new garden bed. I couldn't even flip it and bury it, even though my FIL said it would be fine....had to bag it up and throw it away. I'm the one that plants and weeds in those gardens, and I hate finding things later. I have a weedy lawn, and I hate finding runners of things along the edge trying to make their way into my garden beds. I already have quite a few of those anyway, and they drive me nuts. The thought of burying stuff like that beneath new plants doesn't work for me.
I also like to dig deep, break up the soil that's there, and add whatever I need in the beginning. We have claylike soil, so it's better for me to do it this way. If I just dug a hole in the clay and planted like that, it would get waterlogged in our rainy season.
We had a corner of our back yard done with a raised bed, about 12x12 feet or so, which was filled with weeds when we got here. A work friend of DH said we should just rent a rototiller for the whole thing, but I couldn't do that either. All I could think of was grinding those weed roots that take up where they please into little bits that would grow to haunt me for the next 10 years. It took at least a whole summer of leisure time to do it the hard way, but I don't have a bad back, and I had the time to do it slowly.
Good luck with what works best for you. If you have friends/family that could do a bit of digging for you in exchange for a nice BBQ dinner, that may work too.
and it worked fine. The only problem was the soil washing down onto the aadjacent walkway when it rained, so I ended up putting a little low rock wall along there to keep the soil in place. Other than that, worked fine.
as long as there is 10" + of new soil over the grass. Mix in some peat moss with the new soil or compost and you are good to go. You can if you want flip the sod over first, but that require more work anda flat shovel. :)