I've been losing roses that I've transplanted from pots
into the ground: the soil I've been putting them is in
a mix of clay and sand, and as I've noted before, some
of them have ended up in a couple inches of standing
water. The rains go on, with heavy rain almost daily.

I decided to make raised beds for them. It wasn't the
expense that held me back so much as the obvious
material for my neck of the woods, southern pine
treated with CCA (chromated copper arsenate) at
0.40%. I don't really fear that arsenic will leach
into the soil, but I hate having to cut treated wood:
the sawdust seems to go everywhere, and if arsenic does
leach out, it'll leach out of sawdust much more readily
than out of a board or one of those landscape timbers
milled out of a peeler core. (Peeler co what's left of
a log that has mostly been made into plywood: a cylinder
of wood about eight feet long, consisting of wood from
near the center of a trunk and hence full of defects that
may render it structurally unsound.) Chopping 8-foot
boards or timbers into 32-inch lengths means two cuts.

Concrete edging: more expensive and only six inches high.
Concrete blocks: heavy and probably still not as cheap as
treated wood. (Also, I avoid using concrete because
Portland cement uses up a lot of fuel in its manufacture; even
if the fuel is often old rubber tires. All the worries about
greenhouse gases are probably overblown, but the fuel and
the heating of limestone both release carbon dioxide, and
unlike burned lime, which recombines with it over time,
cement doesn't soak up carbon dioxide.) Plastic edging
isn't usually designed for raised beds. What to use? How to
confine the soil? Old tires might work, but they're ugly, and
I have enough redneck charm around here already. (Redneck
charm tip: if you need reflectors to mark obstacles along a
driveway, use CDs, particularly those free CD-ROMs that
AOL and the like send one in the mail.)

Then it struck me: I had an "aha!" moment in the giant store
full of home-improvement stuff (a Lowe's). I have acres and
acres of land. I don't need twee little pieces of edging, I
rarely have visitors, let alone a spouse. Does neatness matter?

I'm buying a load of yard-waste compost, which around here
is largely sand. I'll dump a wheelbarrow-ful of it where I
want to plant the rose, dig a dimple in its top, and plant the
bush in that. Even in heavy rains, I know from my experience
adding it to my vegetable garden, this compost stays in its
heaps, no roots to secure it, unless I actually flatten it on
purpose. If the rains give out, I can run drip-irrigation lines
and use short-lengths of spaghetti line to put the drippers atop
the heap, at the base of the plant.

Sort of the Zen raised bed: cheap, simple, environmentally
friendly. And obvious once it dawns on you.

Mark., now to try it, if my wonky left foot lets me