Creating a raised bed in your flower garden can be a challenge when you have plants that require good water drainage. I know how frustrating it can be to have a yard that just won’t cooperate when some plants can handle the excess water in an area that doesn’t drain properly but some will not. The plants that do well will benefit from the excess water and it might help them bloom quicker and more beautiful. But other plants just don’t cope as well and these may die quickly. What I normally do when I buy plants for my garden is to check the drainage required for each plant and figure out the area where they will be planted so they get proper drainage and there is no conflict with other plants. (photo courtesy: stauffersdreamgarden.com)

To figure out how much water your designated patch of soil retains, dig a hole about ten inches deep. Fill it with water and check it in a day when all the water has disappeared. Fill the hole again with water and if the second time the hole is full of water, your soil has a low saturation point. This is not good for almost any plant to survive and you need to fix it. The method for improving drainage in your garden is to create a raised bed. You can create a small border for a raised bed and add enough soil and compost to raise it above the rest of the level of the yard by at least 7 inches. Just doing this small border will improve drainage significantly.

The two main areas that you would want to build a raised bed are on grass or dirt. Both of these situations should be built slightly different. If you want a raised garden in a non grassy area, this will be easy to build. Just find some type of border to retain the dirt you will be adding. What really works for me are the good old two by fours. Just grab a few and place them around the area where you want your raised bed. Once the two by fours are in place, add some soil and maybe some manure. I normally wait a while before planting on the raised bed just to make sure there is no deterioration taking place. (photo courtesy: srgc.org.uk)

If you are planning to build a raised bed where sod already exists, this may be a little more difficult to do. For starters, you need to cut the sod around the perimeter of the garden and then flip it over. This is not as simple as it sounds and you need something that has a very sharp edge to slice the edges of the soil and be able to get under it. Once the sod is turned upside down, you can add a layer of straw to prevent the grass from growing back up. On top of the layer of straw, you can add all the soil and manure that a normal garden would need.

After your raised beds are built, you can start planting your plants the same way you’ve planted them before in any other areas of your garden. Be careful and make sure that the roots don’t extend too far into the original ground level. Keep in mind that the whole point of creating a raised bed is to keep the roots out of that ground level that saturates easily. The beauty of a raised bed is that you will notice a great improvement almost immediately after planting you new plants. The new soil added facilitates better root development, evaporation is prevented and decomposition is completely discouraged. Combine all these things and it makes a perfect environment for almost any plant to grow beautifully. So go ahead and start building that raised bed and you will see that the results are worth every bit of work you’ve put into it. (photo courtesy: thenaturalgardener.co.uk)