Forest Garden Caledonian Square Raised Bed 90 x 90 cm Wooden Planter

This is essentially a set of fairly roughly cut but substantial pieces of timber and a few screws.I got this on Amazon for just over £100 but the same item was being sold on other sites for £150 or even over £200.In order to make it, I also had to buy a long drill bit to drill the guide holes. That cost an additional £10. It would have been nice if these holes we done for you, but I know why they didn't. The pieces are obviously rough cut, so if they tried to pre-drill the holes none of them would match up. It would need a considerably more sophisticated Ikea style production process to do that.Don't try to skip the pre-drilling step. If nothing else, the screws provided don't have enough attack to be able to fully self tap without a guide hole.So as long as you see this as a pack of wood and screws to save you from sawing planks yourself and you get it at the right price I think it's a nice product.It recommends two people to make it. I can see why. If you build it as one unit it is very heavy. Too heavy for me to carry to its install position anyway. So what I did was build the bottom two layers as one unit and build the top two layers as another unit. That way they were light enough to carry after screwing together. Once filled they aren't going to move much, the soil will keep them in place. Alternatively you could always screw an internal bracket in once you have placed them.

Order made and confirmed 25/03/2021 - "delivery expected Thursday, April 29 - Monday, May 17"*11/05/2021 received message from Amazon - "We thought you'd like to know that Pure Garden dispatched your item(s). Your order is on the way, and can no longer be changed. Arriving: Monday, May 17"*17/05/2021 waited in for delivery. Late afternoon phoned Pure Garden, only to be told item not expected to be delivered until week beginning 31/05/2021. Planned activities had been delayed several days unnecessarily because of false information from Amazon.*In no position to comment on item ordered until it is delivered, so minimal rating applied.*Now that it has been delivered - 28/05/21 - I can review it and adjust my rating. The design is very good, but the execution of it less so. The pieces seemed to have been cut before the timber was fully seasoned, and shrunk at different rates, so that there were slight differences in sizes of supposedly identical pieces, and corresponding difficulties in achieving symmetry. Drilling the screw holes was accomplished easily with a pillar drill for accuracy, although a hand-held power drill would have sufficed. Guidance on screw hole size in the instructions would have been appreciated. I used a template for hole positioning to ensure that at the corners the screw securing 2 parts of the same layer did not clash with a screw fastening different layers. The finished item looks good, and the minor misalignments will be disguised by plants in due course.

This is really poorly made with very rough wood that's not cut the same so it does not go together well. Don't try to use the instruction it's better to go the DIY route, we made the pieces as individual units. We bought metal connectors to join them together on the inside to make the unit. Definitely NOT worth the money.

Great product, very sturdy and will last years. A little pricy but great qualityTakes much more soil than suggested - about double.

Was a little disappointed with the finish a few rough edges, and would have been happier if the holes had been predilled. It fitted together ,and lòks good

Easy to assemble take 4-5 bags of 50 litre bags of compost to fill and it will last for years a very permanent fixture for your garden

Still haven’t constructed this as it requires the customer to drill the holes to put it together & lacks clear instructions. Doesn’t seem to have a fixing kit either. Fine if you’re a DIY expert & like puzzles but not worth the money if you’re not.

this is a good solid product and very heavy once assembled, I had to pre drill holes before I was able to fit it together, as the long screws kept getting stuck, the finish of the wood is quite rough, so it might need a light sanding down