How to Build a Dry Stack Stonework Raised Bed Garden

Have you had enough of crawling around on the ground? Is your garden prone to unexpected cool or hot spells? Do you find all of the whiskey barrel, tire, and railroad tie raised beds gracing your neighbor's yards and gardens to be obnoxious? You CAN have a raised bed garden that doesn't look like a white trash garbage party. A dry stack raised bed is attractive, rugged, and gives your garden an old-world appeal. Well-laid stonework decisively avoids the "Bud Light" sensibility.

Most folks avoid stonework like the plague. Stonework seems to be an inaccessible trade to most of us. Indeed, a mortared stone house is beyond the reach of most of us, but building a small dry stack raised bed to a height of three or four feet is well within the grasp of most DIY home owners.

Finding Stone

Dry stack walls lend themselves to extreme flexibility of material. You can purchase your stone from the local quarry or garden center, or just pull the local fieldstone from the woods and fields near your home. In your raised bed, each style of stonework will have a different look, but regardless of your choice of stone, all are beautiful, natural, and lasting.

If purchasing stone, look for flagstone, wall stone, or pavers, and compare prices. Take a drive around the neighborhood and look at other stonework in the area. Some areas favor particular styles of stonework. You can choose to make your raised bed conform to this norm or not, but it's good to know what's out there before you start.

Layout

A dry stack raised bed is essentially four dry stack stone walls arranged in a square or rectangle. While you may be tempted to create a large and ornate stone garden, it's a good idea to start slowly as you develop your stonework chops.

Using spray paint, mark the outside edges of your raised bed on the lawn. Try to start with a single raised bed for your garden, no more than four feet on each side. Once you've marked it out and are happy with the layout, use a flat-edged spade to remove the sod from the marked area.

The Base

If you live in an area prone to winter freezing, you'll need to take steps to keep your wall from bucking and shifting every winter. Frost heaving can significantly reduce the useful life of your raised bed. Drainage is critical to dry stack stonework projects, so dig down between twelve and eighteen inches, setting the soil aside where it will be handy later.

Backfill the entire area with gravel to about two inches below grade. Pea-gravel up to about one inch gravel is fine. Compact the gravel with a hand tamper or log every four to six inches. This will ensure a "rock solid" base upon which to place your raised bed stonework.

Some people feel that the base should be laid only where the dry stack wall will be, and that native soil should be left exposed in the middle, allowing roots from the raised bed to reach down into the soil. Unless your raised bed will be one foot or less in height, this is a waste of time. Garden roots will rarely extend more than one foot down into the dirt.

The Wall

Lay one course of stone directly onto the gravel. Use your largest and heaviest stones for this course. Continue to lay stones until you reach a height of four to six inches. Dry stack walls require no mortar. If a stone wobbles, find a shard, chip, or sliver of stone from your pile, and pound it into the space with a rubber mallet, creating a stable surface upon which to continue your stonework.

Try to ensure that your dry stack walls all lean slightly toward the center of the raised bed. They will lean on the filler and garden soil, and gravity will help hold the wall together, rather then trying to tear down your stonework.

Throughout your dry stack work, you need to follow the golden rule of stonework: "One over two, two over one." Lay the stones like bricks, making sure that each stone bridges a crack between two stones below it. Vertical seams in your wall make the wall much weaker.

Once you've reached a height of six inches or so, fill the interior portion of your raised bed with leftover gravel, scrap stones, or dirt. Only the top twelve to eighteen inches of the raised bed needs to contain viable garden soil.

The Bed

When your stonework reaches a point twelve to eighteen inches from the top, it's time to create the garden bed portion of your dry stack raised bed. Make as level a surface as possible with your stone and filler material, and lay down a layer of landscape cloth, cutting the cloth to conform to the shape and size of your bed. The landscape cloth will keep your valuable garden soil from sifting down through your filler material.

Continue to build up your wall as before, placing the next course of stone right on top of the edges of the landscape cloth, and substituting good soil for your filler.

Capstones

When your dry stack stonework has reached the desired height, find some capstones. Capstones are longer than most wall stones, and span the full width of your wall. A level course of capstones goes a long way toward making your raised bed attractive.

It's a good idea to secure your capstones to the rest of the wall using a little bit of ready-mix cement, placed toward the center where it's not visible. Unlike dry stack walls along fields, you may spend a lot of time sitting on top of your raised bed, working your garden. The cement is added insurance that the wall won't shift beneath you.

The natural permanence of a dry stack raised bed brings amazing beauty along with its presence. If you're not afraid of a little stonework, this could be a great introduction to the craft, and a breathtaking addition to your garden.