You don't need a large garden for a lush flower bed - a small corner is sufficient, and a planter with colorful flowers can even be easily integrated into the terrace or balcony. We have collected some beautiful and practical ideas to build yourself.
How can I build a flower bed myself?
To build a flower bed yourself, you can create raised beds or planters from materials such as wood, stone or metal. Make sure there is an open bottom or drainage, waterproof walls and fill the bed with commercial potting soil instead of compost.
Raised beds and planter boxes for flowers
Raised beds or slightly raised plant boxes are extremely practical, as they enable back-friendly work in the flower bed, a wide range of design options for the garden and the planting of colorful perennials even where the appropriate soil conditions do not actually exist. Such a raised bed does not necessarily have to be rectangular; you can also choose oval, curved, round or L- or U-shaped beds as a terrace border. The advantage of the latter forms in particular is that you can easily install a flowering privacy screen with the help of a raised bed and a few taller perennials. The raised plant boxes can be constructed from a wide variety of materials as desired: wooden slats, Euro pallets, concrete and natural stones, metal, plastic or woven willow branches. It's very easy to build your own if you use Euro pallets or manhole rings, for example. However, there are the following tips to keep in mind when using a raised bed for flowers:
- Leave the raised bed open at the bottom to allow excess water to drain away.
- Where this is not possible, another drainage option should be found.
- The walls of the raised bed should be covered waterproof with pond liner (€10.00 on Amazon) or similar.
- Otherwise, wooden beds in particular will not last particularly long.
- Don't fill the raised bed with compost and layer material!
- This is way too rich for flowers.
- Instead, commercially available potting soil or potting soil is sufficient.
The idea of simply letting the planting area for the flower bed into the terrace is also clever by not tiling part of it or otherwise covering it with a floor and instead letting plant boxes into the cave created there.
Various bed borders
A raised bed in the garden can be bordered using various materials. This not only looks tidier, but also has a very practical purpose: thanks to the border, the planted perennials stay in the bed and do not grow beyond it. Very different materials as well as certain hedge plants have proven successful as bed borders:
- low box hedge: classic border from the cottage garden
- woven willow fences: often used in cottage gardens and natural gardens
- Concrete stones: lawn curbs are well suited, but also other shaped stones
- Natural stones: loosely arranged or as a low dry stone wall, these many small animals offer shelter
- Herbal perennials: a frame made of fragrant herbs helps against numerous pests
Tip
If you don't want to do it yourself, you can buy ready-made raised beds or kits instead. These are also available specifically tailored to the needs of balcony and terrace gardeners.