Raised bed against a fence

sethsgran

We are doing some work in our garden. It’s a pretty bland area and we have decided to build a raised bed alongside our garden fence. The wall will be reclaimed bricks. Do we need to leave a space between the bed and the fence, to avoid rot etc. We don’t have neighbours at the other side of the fence. The wall will be very low, prob around 30cm. Any tips would be appreciated

TheCyclingProgrammer

I!!!8217;d leave a gap for airflow. You won!!!8217;t see it when the plants have established themselves.

that

Not to sure of cost, but my friend had his raised beds done from old railway sleepers and they were great. Just an idea though

sethsgran

Thanks for both replies. We actually have the bricks, freebies so want to use them. But yes I agree it needs a gap at the back

Hopeless_Case

Also I guess you need enough room to access the fence, to treat it or if the panel needs replacing? And to get at any weeds which grow up between the fence and the raised bed I guess

sethsgran

Good point. We have 2 grandsons coming to earn some pocket money to help us treat the fence before we build the wall but hadn’t thought about future treatments

moneyistooshorttomention

Hopeless_Case wrote: »

Also I guess you need enough room to access the fence, to treat it or if the panel needs replacing? And to get at any weeds which grow up between the fence and the raised bed I guess

Voice of experience time re weeds getting into awkward gaps - and depends on what the weed is.

Suffice it to say - it was somewhat of a struggle when a bit of ivy started growing in an awkward spot. I could have just pulled it out very easily if there'd not been an "obstruction" there. As it was I poured boiling water and then salt on it to get rid of it.

Sycamore seedlings keep popping up in my own garden too - and they've got into some awkward places too. I eventually realised a long-handled "hoick the weeds out" tool used for between paving stones would hoick them out.

getmore4less

Have you thought about changing the fence and making the wall the equivalent of a gravel board so the modified panel sits on top of the wall.

if keeping the gap then make it unfriendly to stuff that wants to grow membrane+gravel/paving/bark...

Anything less than a 500mm gap gets restrictive to walking down.
with a 300mm high wall I suspect anything less than 200mm gap is going to be tight for fence work.

I have a large gap between my fence and beds so I can get too both sides of the bed, I ran batons between the fence posts(5/6) at ground level and have membrane attached to them across to the beds, any fence maintenance/replacement I can unscrew the batons and pull back the membranes(with toppings) do the work then reattach the baton(s)

sethsgran

Unfortunately changing the fence is not an option, not if I want my husband and sons to still like me. The idea of the beds is a recent plan and they only finished the fence 6 month ago. It!!!8217;s 13 panels long so it was a big job for them Having said this I will put some of the suggestions into action. The wall won!!!8217;t be high so it!!!8217;s not a huge job.

shaun_from_Africa

I would suggest making sure that all the weeds/plants between the wall and fence have been totally removed or killed then put down a couple of layers of weed suppressant membrane such as this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GardenMate%C2%AE-control-ground-cover-membrane/dp/B00N3454UQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1532603031&sr=8-3&keywords=weed+suppressant+membrane

and then put a bit of gravel ontop of the membrane.
The link above is only to show what it's like. You can normally buy it "off the roll" in whatever lengths you need from garden centres.

sethsgran

Excellent. Thanks for that