Newbie - Brick built raised bed questions!

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First off - Hello all! Just registered and this is my first post!

Moved into a new house about a year ago, and as such have to do the garden from scratch! Have so far got the patio, decking and a second 'round patio' area sorted!

Anyhow, I'm going to be building 2 raised beds of brick at the edge of the patio to lead into the rest of the garden. Each will be 3 metres long (from fence towards centre of garden) and about 1.5 metres out (from patio to garden) and 7 courses high (plus coping). I have a couple of questions about this!

First of all, I have some dolomite left from the patio founds - would this suffice, or would I need a concrete base in addition? And how deep do I need to go?

Secondly, will single skin be adequate given the weight of the muck? I will be putting about 6" of gravel at the bottom, along with several drainage holes, but will be using the muck I've dug out of the garden, of which most is nice and not too clay.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Dave
 
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[quote="DaveStewart";p="987303
First of all, I have some dolomite left from the patio founds - would this suffice, or would I need a concrete base in addition? And how deep do I need to go?
dolomite? :confused: you will require a modest concrete foundation under the wall. 6" thick and about a shovel wide.

Secondly, will single skin be adequate given the weight of the muck? I will be putting about 6" of gravel at the bottom, along with several drainage holes, but will be using the muck I've dug out of the garden, of which most is nice and not too clay.
the shape of the planter means that it is intrinsically strong, 7 courses or about 21" will be ok with single skin.




Dave[/quote]
 
Think about what you will be planting in it, dolomite has high lime content so lime hating plants don't do well near it.
 
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Thanks - will be mainly bedding plants and ground covering heathers etc that would be planted in them.

With regards to the concrete founds then - roughly how much would I need? From the patio I have 3 bags cement and 4 bags sharp left over - would there be enough cement her to give the founds for one of the beds? 3*1.5 metres square, and at a guess around 6" or 150mm wide, and the same deep? What would the best mix be for this?

TIA
 
sharp sand alone is no good for mixing concrete. you will need to add aggregate.

4 gravel, 2 sharp sand and 1 cement (plus water) is the normal ratio.

a strip footing say 150mm thick, 300mm wide and 11m long would take 0.5m3 of concrete.

this translates to 1 tonne of ballast and 6 - 7, 25kg bags of cement.
 

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