Small 3 Tier garden bed

ClissAT

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Location
Pomona, Qld
Climate
Sub-Tropical
I made this 3 tiered flower garden yesterday after planning it for a couple months.
You could just as easily plant it up with vegies, lettuce, etc.
The green bottom tier is a kids sandpit from Bunnings $20.
The 2nd tier is a black 60lt container from Bunnings $9.
The top tier is a round plastic container from Bunnings $4.
I purchased quality potting mix because my experience is that you get what you pay for & quality mix does a far better job here where water can be a issue at certain times.
The mix is 1x 60lt bag Searles premium potting mix with 12mths of fertilizer in it for $17 from bunnings, plus;
1x 60lt block of coir fibre soaked overnight, $15 from Bunnings, plus;
half a bag of cow manure from Bunnings, $6, plus;
a barrow full of cane mulch that I already had from a large square bale & some fine cane mulch for the topping.
Some plants I already had but I bought more from Bunnings & used only half of them. Total cost of plants was about $10 for the ones I used.
The bricks & sleepers were for free off gumtree. You could also use free pavers as piers to sit this garden on & old fence palings also for free off gumtree instead of the sleepers I used. Just be aware that palings would need to 2 or 3 layers thick to build strength & take the weight of the garden on them.
It has one sleeper at the front for sitting on.

It will be a great place to sit with my lovely tenant to have coffee in the sun in winter when it will be in the full sun or a cool drink in summer when it spends most of the day in dappled shade from the tea-tree which you can see the trunk of at the left hand corner.
For the volume of potting mix I didn't include the amount for the top tier as I already had that existing plant, so if you were making this garden from scratch you would need extra potting mix & coir.

The course cane mulch is used as a filler in the containers & also serves as a water well, wicking system. I crammed it in quite hard, then when the potting mix was added on top, that pressed it down even more. Once it gets fully wet it will drop even more & I will top up the beds.
These plants don't need the whole depth of the containers filled with potting mix.

The 12mm drain holes you can see in the lefthand photo on the second row of the collage. They are well up from the bottom. This suits me here where I don't get a lot of rain.
People in a high rainfall areas would put the drain holes lower but the idea is to have the wicking system so each container still needs a well.

The dominant plant is known by many names but mostly as Million Bells (Calibrachoa) & grows quickly to cascade over everything. It is quite hardy but dislikes wet feet. The other plant is Vinca which is also very hardy & self seeds which I am learning to like these days!
In 5wks or so this garden will be full of brightly coloured cascading flowers from top to bottom.

3 Tier garden at cabin collage.jpg
 
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