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Raised Sleeper Bed against Fence
jpbilke
Posts: 12
Hello,
First time poster and very new to all things gardening.
We moved into a new property about 8 months ago and I've spent a fair amount of spare time clearing a neglected garden - my main job being taking out an overgrown hedgerow and the remains of some kind of rock garden along the back and reclaiming about 8 feet of garden in the process!
My issue is that this area of the garden slopes upwards quite significantly I think in part due to the remains of the rock garden i excavated in each of the corners. I've cleared the rubble and had a nice new fence installed which spans the width of the garden with an extra panel in the corner on the right side (previously also hedgerow). I've also leveled the garden to within about 3 feet of the fence, piling up the excess in a mound spanning from the back right corner almost to the other side of the garden (i've excavated the left hand corner to build a shed base). In hindsight, I definitely should have completely leveled the garden before getting a fence installed but as we had nothing shielding us from the footpath on the other side it was urgent we got it sorted.
Now, because of the slope, the actual bottom of the fence sits a good 12 - 15 inches higher than the middle of the garden. I'm planning to turn the mound into a raised bed using sleepers but I have the following issue.
If I make the bed 4 sided and level out the back and right hand corner of the garden I will expose the gravel boards from the fence (due to them sitting higher up because of the slope) and i'm worried this might make it unstable.
So, i'm wondering if it would be ok to incorporate this natural slope in to my raised Bed??
In other words could I have sleepers on 2 sides around the mound in an L shape and then use the fence as the 3rd and 4th side? No earth would be touching the fence panels as the soil level of the bed would essentially be in line with the bottom of the fence (or the top of the concrete gravel boards). The raised bed would then come 3 feet or so into the garden so it would be raised in relation to the rest of the garden but also hide the slope.
I don't know if i've explained myself very well but would like to know if there's any reason why I couldn't do this?
Alternatively I could dig down and expose the Gravel boards and put sleepers in front of them before filling the bed but I don't want my fence to fall down!
Look forward to hearing your advice.
Thanks!
First time poster and very new to all things gardening.
We moved into a new property about 8 months ago and I've spent a fair amount of spare time clearing a neglected garden - my main job being taking out an overgrown hedgerow and the remains of some kind of rock garden along the back and reclaiming about 8 feet of garden in the process!
My issue is that this area of the garden slopes upwards quite significantly I think in part due to the remains of the rock garden i excavated in each of the corners. I've cleared the rubble and had a nice new fence installed which spans the width of the garden with an extra panel in the corner on the right side (previously also hedgerow). I've also leveled the garden to within about 3 feet of the fence, piling up the excess in a mound spanning from the back right corner almost to the other side of the garden (i've excavated the left hand corner to build a shed base). In hindsight, I definitely should have completely leveled the garden before getting a fence installed but as we had nothing shielding us from the footpath on the other side it was urgent we got it sorted.
Now, because of the slope, the actual bottom of the fence sits a good 12 - 15 inches higher than the middle of the garden. I'm planning to turn the mound into a raised bed using sleepers but I have the following issue.
If I make the bed 4 sided and level out the back and right hand corner of the garden I will expose the gravel boards from the fence (due to them sitting higher up because of the slope) and i'm worried this might make it unstable.
So, i'm wondering if it would be ok to incorporate this natural slope in to my raised Bed??
In other words could I have sleepers on 2 sides around the mound in an L shape and then use the fence as the 3rd and 4th side? No earth would be touching the fence panels as the soil level of the bed would essentially be in line with the bottom of the fence (or the top of the concrete gravel boards). The raised bed would then come 3 feet or so into the garden so it would be raised in relation to the rest of the garden but also hide the slope.
I don't know if i've explained myself very well but would like to know if there's any reason why I couldn't do this?
Alternatively I could dig down and expose the Gravel boards and put sleepers in front of them before filling the bed but I don't want my fence to fall down!
Look forward to hearing your advice.
Thanks!
0
Posts
Will the weight of the sleepers (probably 2 or 3 high) be enough to keep them solid, or should I screw the front and sides together?
Thanks for any advice
It's best to line your sleepers at the back, with a plastic membrane (not one which is water soluble), so that there is minimal contact between the sleepers and the soil. This will slow down the rate at which they rot.
I would also recommend you don't let any of your plants grow over the top of the sleepers, or to shade them from the sun, as otherwise they will rot much more quickly. I wish we had learned these lessons, as many of our sleepers are very rotten indeed.