Raised Garden Beds along side of a house?

[LondonGardener]

Hi everyone, I'm new here (this is my first post!). I stumbled across this site today while looking for a forum to ask my gardening questions. Hopefully someone here can help!


I want to put a raised bed in my backyard this year. Can you place a raised bed next to the house? In my head I'm picturing a 2.5ft high L-shaped raised bed that runs along the side of the deck and then below my kitchen windows and to the edge of the house. Do you have to worry about drainage if you're doing this? I don't want water pooling beneath the raised bed and then having no way to evaporate, and just sort of... collecting right at the base of the house. Is this a common problem? If I do place a raised bed there, can the backing of the garden go right next to the siding and brick or should I put a layer of something else there? (My mom suggested styrofoam but I wasn't sure why).

This particular section of my yard currently has a regular flower bed in it - I have some edging along it but that's about it. The lawn slants downward slightly towards the house in this section so I was thinking that by raising the bed we might improve the drainage. We had a leak in that back corner at one point. It hasn't been a problem in about 2 years but you never know I guess.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Grey]

I personally prefer rasied beds, and in your case it sounds ideal. Yes, you can have the bed up close to the house as long as you are getting adequate light that you need for your plants.

Drainage - as long as your soil is fairly loose, it should be ok. Also depending upon how tightly you make your beds - mine have never been watertight so excess oozes through between the boards. And into the ground below as well, which is fine.

The only concern I have with the bed being right up against the house is if you get too much refracted light (or stored heat from the brick) and it adversely affects the plants somehow - but I generally believe it will be fine. Happy gardening!

[LondonGardener]

Thanks for your reply Grey.

Generally I've found that specific plot has grown some fantastic plants for me over the last 2/3 years that we've been here. I just want to spruce it up a bit and raise the bed to look a bit more proportional to the house and patio. But in general I haven't had too much of a problem with plants doing well - in fact most of what I've planted there has done splendidly. I'm hoping that they will continue to do so in a raised bed!


So, you used boards for yours, huh? Hmm. I wasn't sure if I should use boards or brick/stone.

[opabinia51]

Hi London, one word to the wise about raised beds is that they tend to need more watering than conventional plantings because there is increased surface area for water to evaporate off of.

But, they work well and a lot of people use them around here. I have three of them in my large vegetable garden.

When I built my first raised bed I dug down about 3 feet and filled the hole with alternating layers of mulched up leaves (I used apple) and soil. Things grew great in it. Last year, I put in two more.