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The benefits of raised beds

If you want to add an extra dimension to your garden, raised beds make an attractive design feature with many practical uses. Raising even a small section adds visual interest to any size of outdoor space whether you want to break the monotony of a single level or create an eye-catching centre piece or display. Have a look at the parks and public gardens around you to see how often professional gardeners make use of raised beds with some spectacular results.

A raised bed is simply an enclosed area of soil or compost that is higher than the rest of the garden. There are lots of different materials you can use which mean a raised bed can be built to suit all budgets and can be either a seasonal or a permanent feature of your outside space. They can be used to grow anything from perennials and alpines to soft fruit, produce or herbs and one of the biggest benefits is that a raised bed can be used to grow plants that the rest of your garden just can’t support due to soil type or conditions.

Aside from being a simple and eye-catching way to add a touch of professional design to your garden, creating a raised bed can have many practical benefits.

Info Centre- woman is planting veg and herbs in raised bed

Raised beds can:

  • Grow a wider variety of plants: You can put different soil in your raised bed to the rest of your garden which is great if you have alkaline soil and want to grow lime-hating plants or herbs. It also means you’ll be able to grow plants that need a different level of drainage to the soil you have in the rest of your plot.
  • Promote a longer growing season: the soil in a raised bed warms faster in the spring. This lets you plant earlier and enjoy a longer season. If you cover the bed, the soil will warm up even faster and you can start earlier.
  • Be easier to maintain: once the bed is built, filled with a good quality topsoil and planted, annual maintenance can be as simple as dressing your raised bed with well-rotted compost. Raised beds are also much easier to keep watered than smaller containers or planted pots although in drought conditions you will have to pay them more attention than the rest of your garden.
  • Save your back: they are a great boost if you have trouble bending or other mobility problems.
  • Help with pest control: It’s easy to protect young plants with horticultural fleece or netting if they are growing in a raised bed.

Raised beds can add a useful and decorative touch to add to your outdoor space, whether it’s a domestic garden or even an allotment. Many householders who want to add an area for produce or would like to grow soft fruit in their back garden find a separate raised bed fits in better visually than an isolated vegetable patch in the middle of their flowering plants or next to the lawn.

Another advantage to raised beds is the ability to import suitable topsoil. It gives you the opportunity to ensure that you are using safe, fertile product that is fit for purpose. The Rolawn range of topsoils is carefully blended to suit the intended task.

What’s more, as an environmentally friendly supplier, Rolawn uses responsible sourcing protocols that help to limit both our own and your impact on the environment.

Once you’ve built your raised bed, what you grow in it is only limited by your imagination and a few practical considerations. 

If you plan to grow vegetables then it’s a good idea to ask other gardeners about their experiences with different varieties in raised beds as opposed to ordinary beds. 

Many keen allotment gardeners use raised beds successfully for a salad bed or for root crops such as carrots and parsnips because of the deep fine soil but don’t find them so useful for growing potatoes.

Photo – Harrod Horticultural Raised Beds

Find out more in our ‘Selecting the right topsoil’ video.​

topsoil you can trust - choosing the right top soil - video thumbnail
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Important update: Temporary 6.5% surcharge effective 7 April 

At Rolawn, we are committed to maintaining the high standards of quality and service our customers expect, so we want to be open with our customers about a change that will affect pricing from Tuesday 7th April. 

This decision has been taken in response to disruption to energy supplies, which has led to significant increases in wholesale prices, affecting not only fuel and fertiliser but also costs throughout our wider supply chain. As a business that relies heavily on fuel for both transport and operations, these sustained cost pressures have become increasingly difficult to absorb.  

While we have worked hard to mitigate the impact, the scale and pace of recent price increases have now exceeded what we can sustain internally, and we therefore need to recover a proportion of these externally driven increases. 

From Tuesday 7th April, a temporary 6.5% surcharge will apply to all products.  

We know that any increase in price is frustrating, particularly at a time when many businesses and households are already feeling under pressure. That is why we want to be clear that this is not a decision we have made lightly, and not one we wanted to make. It has been introduced solely to help offset unavoidable cost inflation and allow us to continue delivering the quality, reliability and service standards associated with Rolawn. 

We will continue to monitor market conditions closely and will review this surcharge as soon as circumstances allow, providing reasonable notice of any changes. We recognise that any price increase is unwelcome, but this step is necessary to ensure the continuity and reliability of our operations during a period of ongoing uncertainty. 

We remain committed to providing the quality, reliability and service standards you expect from Rolawn, and we truly appreciate your understanding and continued support. 

If you have any questions, please contact our customer support team who will be happy to help.