I would be the first to admit that raised beds are a good idea, but I haven’t seen many of them that have caught my eye from a cosmetic standpoint. My cousin, for one, readily admits that her painful knees make it hard for her to get down on her hands and knees anymore, so she welcomes alternative methods that can help her garden.
Raised beds go a step beyond adaptive tools toward making gardening enjoyable for the senior population, and if you can figure out how to do this in efficient but attractive manner it can be even more exciting.
Raised beds can be built high enough to work from a sitting position and arranged in any order in your front or back yard, or even on your deck. Valerie Eason wrote an article for the Seattle Times (July 5, 2009) with some amazing pictures, about a chic raised bed that is really a work of art.
The beds were designed to be easy to take care of, are made of sustainable materials and look really look good. The beds were designed for her by Exteriorscapes and made of a thin steel called Cor-Ten. They take up a minimum amount of space. Icor-Ten is black when the material is raw and new, but slowly weather to a rusty patina. The interior is coated with natural rubber. The beds are easy to care for and the metal makes the soil warm quickly. The beds are two feet high so they can be worked without bending over too far.
These particular raised beds are a true work of art that makes veggie growing easy on the back while not detracting from landscaping décor.
Sounds like a great idea! The beds in my back yard are so dense with clay and roots that it is almost impossible to cultivate them anymore...and when you add in fios cables etc, it is like trying to grow something in a mine filed.
Posted by: Nadeoui Eden | August 03, 2009 at 05:22 AM