When we first moved to Lubbock many years ago, I was happy to have a garden on level ground, without having to worry about how to plant and tend a hillside plot of land, a patch of thin soil held in place only by rocks and sturdy weeds, where gravity meant that both water and the gardener usually ended up at the bottom without having provided much benefit to the garden. And, as I got older and no longer imbued with any semblance of catlike grace or sure footing, “flatland” gardening developed an even stronger appeal. However, there comes a time in every gardener’s life when the effort of bending, or stooping, or kneeling for any length of time leads to transient worries about not being able to get up with a measure of grace, or perhaps not even to rise at all, but to lie quietly and wait for a helping hand or the inevitability of becoming worm fodder. For an imaginative gardener, this is when the light bulb clicks on, and the idea of gardening in raised beds or containers comes to mind. And, raised container gardening has other benefits: easy plants grown in these small spaces can give children a sense of pride and ownership, and individuals with physical disabilities can enjoy the relaxation of gardening with less strain. Obviously building raised garden beds is done most easily when the garden is first designed, but the simple fact of life is that old gardeners generally have established gardens created in the flush of youth and vigor, and now maintained at the cost of sore muscles and aching backs. In such a garden, the most that can usually be hoped for is to convert some parts of the garden to elevated plantings. I have found that clay chimney flue liners make very attractive raised planters; they are inexpensive, available at most brick yards, come in a variety of sizes, and the terra cotta color works well in the garden. They look good when sunk into the ground at differing heights for architectural interest and to accommodate cascading plants, and are particularly useful for plants which need sharp drainage, such as lavender, rosemary, oregano, and other Mediterranean herbs; strawberries; various sedums, and bulbs such as species tulips.
A quick walk through the garden will help you decide where best to incorporate raised planters, particularly in choosing areas with plants that require a fair amount of maintenance on hands and knees. The easy part is deciding where to place the flue liners; scouting for someone with a strong back, a truck and time to spare to transport them and put them in place can be challenging, and may call for gentle bribery (pizza and chocolate brownies have worked for me in the past).
Once the flue liners are in place, they should be lined with either weed block fabric or nylon mesh screening and filled with about two inches of pea gravel to promote drainage. Plants should be set in good quality potting soil, keeping the soil level about two inches from the top. The root system of trees and shrubs do not easily lend themselves to living in small raised planters, therefore transplants should be limited to ornamental annuals and perennials. When growing strawberries, use nylon mesh screening elevated with bamboo stakes at each corner as a crop cover to keep birds from eating the berries. If the flue liners are placed on a foundation of bricks or some other solid base with a cover of a simply made top of treated wood or a large outdoor tile, they can provide seating as well as storage for small garden tools and supplies.
Although it requires some planning, modifying part of an existing garden to incorporate raised areas can be invigorating and rejuvenate the garden and the gardener.