From David Beaulieu,
Your Guide to Landscaping.
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Why build raised beds? Well, let me ask you: Wouldn't it be nice to be able to appreciate your plants and care for them without having to bend over too much? Shrubs and small trees provide this luxury naturally, but for shorter plants, raised beds are the answer.

But there are several reasons why raised beds can raise your enjoyment of plants to a higher level. So before we consider how to build raised beds, let's look at a few other reasons to build raised beds:

Benefits of Raised Beds

• Vertical interest in your landscape design
• Once installed, raised bed planting is an easy landscaping solution for the elderly, and anyone who has a bad back
• Effective control against tunnelling pests (if you line the bottom with a screen)
• A work-around if you're plagued with poor soil
• Elevation facilitates performance of repetitive plant-care tasks (weeding, pruning, harvesting herbs throughout the summer for cooking, etc.).

But in addition to all that, I wanted a bit more out of this raised bed project. As you can see from the picture above, I capped off my raised bed to form an outdoor bench. This outdoor bench will come in handy as an outdoor work bench.

In Step 2 we'll proceed to the instructions on how to build raised beds, beginning with the supplies needed....