How To Create a Three Season Garden Bed

Step 1: Select a location

First, pick a spot that gets lots of sun to help promote plant growth. Use a garden hose or rope to lay out the size and design of your garden bed. You can also choose to outline your design with powdered chalk or marking paint.

With a sharp shovel or pick axe, remove the top layer of turf in small, manageable sections. Relocate the cut turf to another part of your yard or flip it upside down for added compost material. Break up the soil beneath and remove any large rocks.

 

Step 2: Place wall blocks

Using a flat blade shovel or hoe, level and smooth the area where the garden wall blocks will go. Apply a 1-inch layer of leveling sand or paver base, and lay the first run of wall blocks. Stack the blocks to the desired height.

For more details on the techniques used to build a garden bed using wall blocks, see our Garden Club project.

 

Step 3: Add soil

Now that the wall blocks are in place to define the space, add premixed garden soil to help your garden grow. Plants and flowers will naturally push up the soil up as they grow, so you may want to add more soil to give additional height to your garden bed. 

Step 4: Add plants or seeds

We used the following plants to fill out our colorful Three Season Garden Bed.

Tall yellow flowers: Daylilies
Tall orange flowers: Asiatic lilies
Purple flowers on left: Salvia
Red flowers: Roses
White flowers: Daisies
Pink flowers: Hydrangeas
Purple flowers on right: Phlox