Raised wicking bed

[Adam_W]

Hi all & happy new DECADE!
Well everything with our reno has slowed down a of late... damn you beastly budgets... but I've been fiddling away with a few things over the break.
Thought I'd share this one. This is beneath the window of what will be our master bedroom, Gardenia planted in it.

The bed itself is an elevated timber frame and then it's lined to create a self-watering wicking bed.
The whole thing has then been clad with 137mm EkoDeck Plus decking slats, these have very cool concealed fixings. As a lot of what I was attaching to was steel I used their new fixing kit for steel joists.
I had used EkoDeck before on smaller screening projects so this one was interesting to do. Pushed the limits a bit.

To give neat corners I used aluminium angle some of which I had to paint myself as I couldn't find larger sizes in black finish. For the edging along the top I found that HardieDeck trim worked but I did need to plane the boards a little (It is designed for 18mm boards & the larger EkoDeck is 23mm.)
Still a little fiddling to do with trim but I'm pretty happy with it.
I am going to make a bigger wicking-bed soon & I hope to shoot a video of that so I'll post when done.

[Jason]

Looks fantastic @Adam_W, many thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the next one!

Jason

[MitchellM]

@Adam_W That trim really finishes it off nicely, great job!. Ekodeck is starting to grow on me, the extra cost compared to hardwood soon pays off if you consider the price of oiling yearly and labour.

Mind running us through how you created the wicking beds? Does the plastic retain the water and soil wick it up, or does is have wicks down to the water retainer?

[thanhtetaung]

Hi  @Adam_W. 

Inspired by your ekodeck raised garden bed, I am thinking making this front yard bed as shown in below design,

May I get an idea on what kind of timber/ composite wood should I use for internal support and the screw type.

Currently I am researching on these.

[Adam_W]

Hi @thanhtetaung welcome on-board!
Glad you found it helpful.
To get the best lifespan from a project like this you really need to use a landscape-grade timber for the internals especially.

Ideally use H4 treated pine. I tend to use sleepers for these projects as they are cost effective, easy to work with an have a long lifespan. Normally 200 x 50mm x 2.4m does the job. In you case if you can adjust your size a little you can buy these sleepers at 3m lengths so that could make life easier.

Any screws etc. you use need to be suitable for landscape use too. You can use galvanised but personally I prefer 'ClimaCote' such as these as I've found that they are a lot easier to screw in & apparently they have a longer lifespan in treated pine.

[thanhtetaung]

Thank @Adam_W ,

I will use sleeper and make three inner frame then, 2.1m * 0.6 * 0.6 and 2 of 0.6* 0.6 * 0.6, and join them side by side can do the job I think.

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @thanhtetaung.

It's fantastic to have you join us and great to see you've already taken inspiration from @Adam_W's project and got some helpful assistance. We can't wait to see your design take shape and please don't hesitate to post anytime you have a something to share with the community or need a hand with a project around the house or garden.

Mitchell