Question
I live in a rural setting in a center hall colonial home.  I am looking to create a front foundation bed planting area constructed stacked stone approx 20' long x 8' wide.  The area gets full sun, is level and has regular grass planted there.  

My question is, I would like to bring in topsoil and create a raised bed approx 1-2 feet in height with a low stacked stone wall border.  My neighbor has a large amount of field stone on their property that they are willing to donate to my project.  (YEAH)

So, do I creat the wll first then fill in with dirt or do I bring in the dirt, get it to the height I want then dry stack the stone?  Or any directions or pointers you can give me.

Looking to create a low maintaince perrinial garden

Answer
Hello,  

Its more convenient to place the stone first.  When the stone is placed first you can judge the height of the soil more easily and you can judge the soil level better.

Raised beds involve a bit more maintenance because they dry out faster than ground level beds and so require more watering,but they do warm up better in spring and retain more heat in fall than ground level beds.

You might want to choose drought tolerant plants to reduce watering and choose disease resistant plants whenever possible.  Wild plants often meet these requirements.

If you want to be able to reach into the bed without walking in it,limit the width to 3 or 4 feet. You might want to break the 20 feet length up into 3 or 4 feet wide segments or reduce the overall width to 3 or 4 feet.  Otherwise,to gain access to the bed,you will have to step up 1 or two feet onto the soil and generally its not good to be walking on garden soil because this causes compaction around the plant roots.

Sometimes garden soil can be obtained by "borrowing" it from other areas on the property.  The soil can be scraped off other areas in thin layers and then the areas can for instance,be planted with grass or used for some other purpose.  For instance,if you built a pond or did excavation for a path,you could use the soil from that for another purpose,such as making a raised garden bed.  Good luck. Write back if you have further questions.

Mark Harshman
http://www.mahdrafting.com
Email: [email protected]

http://www.scribd.com/markscrib47