I've created a flower bed... Now what soil do I need?

I've just started to do my garden which I've been planning for a while. I'm basically adding slightly raised flowers beds around the border and a patio at the back.

I've finished the raised flower bed on the left side, but now I'm wondering about soil to fill it! What soil do I need? I want the soil to reach the top of the edging I've laid out, so I'm going to need a hell of a lot! Is it possible to fill it mainly with poor quality soil (cheap) but then add top soil on top? Or do I really need top soil to fill the whole thing?



I literally have no gardening/landscaping experience at all, everything I'm doing I'm just reading about online first, so any help is much appreciated

 

Try freecycle or alike to see if anyone is gifting top soil. You could also try local stables for some manure, and then top off with a tonne of top soil.

Rusty

 

Be careful with topsoil that's offered free, you don't know what nasty weed seeds you could be importing with it.

Dig the border over and then dig in well rotted horse manure and/or compost. If the soil you have now is clay then it would be best to dig in some sand or grit to help drainage and then cover with topsoil.

 

Nice job samwalker just an idea, will you be putting a strip of plastic along the bottom of the fence? once you have your soil in place you wont be able to apply any preservative .

Totally agree.

 

Thanks! I was going to put something there yeah, just wasn't sure what. So a bit of plastic would be fine?

Overnight we've had a bit of rain, just had a look at the flowerbed and its full of puddles that are just sat there. I think the soils clay so has poor drainage (my lawn is always boggy!!)

I've ordered a ton of bedding soil, being delivered tomorrow morning. Is there anything I should be doing to to the flower beds before adding the soil to help with the drainage? I've got a about a quarter of ton of sand left over, can I add that to the bottom? Or mix with the clay? Or the bedding soil?

 

Plastic will be fine, just make sure it isn't the biodegradable type.

Re your clay soil, have a look at this thread.

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/improving-clay.21951/

 

Interesting! Noticed that they'd used newspaper and organic matter in their soil, so I researched that a bit online and have read that it's possible to install a raised bedding by simply adding soil on top of the lawn - I dug my lawn up first! I presumed that if I didn't then eventually the grass would grow through to the surface? Apparently the grass would eventually die and then provide nutrients to the soil.

So would I be ok to put the dug up lawn back into the raised beds to fill it out again, then top it off with a layer of topsoil about 15cm? I can put it back upside down aswell, since it's already dug up?

Here's my big pile of dug up lawn. Tried to leave as much soil as possible and just remove the grass, but still ended up taking quite a lot with me.


That'd save me having to order so much topsoil, plus I wouldn't have to pay for someone to collect the dug up lawn either!

 

Thanks everyone for your help so far!

This is how it's looking at the moment...


I've finished my raised beds down the sides, now i just need to finish the area at the back.

It's going to be a seating area. I was just going to put some stones/pebbles down as the idea of laying a patio seemed a bit daunting, but I've decided I'm going to give the patio a go!!

It's hard to tell from the photo, but I need to raise that back area up so its level with the edging I've installed (like the raised beds), so what materials would you recommend I use to raise it up? It needs to be raised about 12cm.

 

I think there's a website called paving expert which might be a useful point of reference. Sorry I can't help any more than that.