Raised Garden Beds for Wheel Chair Gardener

Hi,

I have a neighbor that is now in a wheel chair. She has a beautiful garden of field flowers and rose bushes. Most of her neighbors have been tending the garden for her, but she's feeling left out because she can't do it herself. She says she's missing playing in the dirt. That I can understand.

A few of the neighbors were wondering if there was a way that maybe the beds can be raised up to chair level where she can roll up to the beds and garden away with everyone? Does anyone have any suggestions of books with landscape diagrams? Has anyone seen something like we have in mind?

DCMerkle

I don't see why you couldn't have a raised flower bed? I don't know the particulars on how you would do it but I wouldn't think it would be really hard to do. I think it is great that you guys are looking for ways where she can become more involved in what she loves to do.

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Originally Posted by tater03

I don't see why you couldn't have a raised flower bed? I don't know the particulars on how you would do it but I wouldn't think it would be really hard to do. I think it is great that you guys are looking for ways where she can become more involved in what she loves to do.

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Thanks tater. A couple of the men are putting their heads together and drawing up plans. What they have in mind is laying a concrete slab, building boxes out of railroad ties and lining them with some sort of non-rust covering on the inside walls, then that would get filled with dirt. We are hoping it works out, but any suggestions would still be appreciated.

DCMerkle

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Originally Posted by dcmerkle

Thanks tater. A couple of the men are putting their heads together and drawing up plans. What they have in mind is laying a concrete slab, building boxes out of railroad ties and lining them with some sort of non-rust covering on the inside walls, then that would get filled with dirt. We are hoping it works out, but any suggestions would still be appreciated.

DCMerkle

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You live in a wonderful neighborhood. It is great that people care about each other enough to help improve this woman's quality of life.

One of mine raised beds is 4 feet off the ground, just because I dont want to bend over.

There is no limited on how high you can build them, you just end up needing more dirt.

My wife is an ergonomist and occupational therapy and we were discusing this veryissue of garden beds for wheelchair users the other day.

One of the things she said that would make a big difference is designing thebed so that the chair user could work them face on.

Working face on will avoid the need for twisting and the resulting tirdness, aches and possible injuries that could develop.

If this isn't possible then "alcoves" in the bed whic allow face on and bothe sides may be a good idea?

Dave,:cool:

What a fantastic idea, and what fabulous neighbors!!! My suggestion would be to not forget the drainage issue. The bottom of the bed could be filled with rocks, just as you would a small planter, perhaps. Most towns have places they dump broken-up concrete that you could probably get access to for the asking. It would save you from having to come up with so much soil, as well.
I would love to hear more about this project!

Me too. Easier to weed that way.
bali

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Originally Posted by dcmerkle

Hi,

I have a neighbor that is now in a wheel chair. She has a beautiful garden of field flowers and rose bushes. Most of her neighbors have been tending the garden for her, but she's feeling left out because she can't do it herself. She says she's missing playing in the dirt. That I can understand.

A few of the neighbors were wondering if there was a way that maybe the beds can be raised up to chair level where she can roll up to the beds and garden away with everyone? Does anyone have any suggestions of books with landscape diagrams? Has anyone seen something like we have in mind?

DCMerkle

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Wow that is a special case. I think it is possible and that will keep her busy and never lonely again. Try to visit your flower store they must have a user friendly raised bed or can help construct one.:confused:

we did this for some folks at a care center, the bottoms of the boxes were filled with creek stones, for drainage, we added a solid aluminum bottom angled so the drain hose drained down the outside pillar, back to a reclamation tank, thus recycling the water for all the gardeners to use.

We also installed standard raised wheel chair accessible beds.
the link below is a .pdf file, with the material list, plans and pictures for those
Building Wheelchair Accessible Raised Garden Beds

Those are awesome Phil! What great info to read about. You know what they say, "A community that builds wheelchair accessible gardening beds together stays together" right? ;)

How about that... it took a while, and I've been away as well,It's also in some cases with Residential Garden Services but it's great to see this idea get some attention.

What a wonderful community. I am truly touched just reading about it...

I was trying to read over some sites online, and someone suggested that a table type structure would be the easiest for those in wheelchairs, so they could pull right up to it. I have seen some pictures of raised bed gardens that were on legs.

Anyways, good luck to you. I hope we can see some pictures in the future!

I agree, I would LOVE to see some pictures!

Sorry, I couldn't find out how to start a new thread so I decided to try this.
I am in a wheel chair so I am looking for simple plans for inexpensive home made raised beds. The kind I can put my knees under. We have much community gardening here, so I need simple inexpensive plans. I can imagine such beds ok until I get to the drainage problem. I see bottoms with fair sized holes and plastic screen to keep the soil in.
I saw a link in another post that was supposed to lead to a pdf of such plans, but instead led me to a site called ripway which had no pdf and didn't seem even remotely having to do with gardening. Perhaps someone accidently posted the wrong link.

One suggestion from experience, is to make sure that the bed is draining away from the house on a slope. Water can pool in the back of a garden and damage the foundation or promote pests like moles moving into your lawn over time.

I agree with everyone here. There's no reason why you can't raise garden beds to suit the required level for person on a wheelchair. It's very nice of you guys to tend her garden for her. I haven't searched by but there should be an article about this. If there's none yet, then someone should write and feature it on the web.

How about considering some hanging baskets? Try to suggest some pathos. They should work well for your neighbor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dcmerkle

Hi,

I have a neighbor that is now in a wheel chair. She has a beautiful garden of field flowers and rose bushes. Most of her neighbors have been tending the garden for her, but she's feeling left out because she can't do it herself. She says she's missing playing in the dirt. That I can understand.

A few of the neighbors were wondering if there was a way that maybe the beds can be raised up to chair level where she can roll up to the beds and garden away with everyone? Does anyone have any suggestions of books with landscape diagrams? Has anyone seen something like we have in mind?

DCMerkle

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Hi, first of all let me just say how wonderful it is for you and your neighbors to do this for her. I have experienced something like this before. We knew of the technical challenges as well as the physical considerations but it took us quite a while to come up with a suitable solution. We did a bit of research online and came across a similar project done by the Christopher Reeve Foundation. I don’t have the link to that page right now as I’m not using my own laptop so I’ll get back to you with it once I get home. But you can also search on Google for it, type in “gardening for people in wheelchairs” and I think the organization’s page is among the top ones. Hope this helps. :)