Having never owned a house or really had a yard of my own, I got pretty excited and decided to do some ad-hoc landscaping. Built some raised beds for vegetables, and just laying in some organic shaped in-ground beds for low water decorative plants. Gonna fill the rest in with gravel. Any pointers?
They're called Landscape Timber, if it helps you search. I found them quite cheap at my local hardware megastore. But beware of treated lumber if you use them for vegetables!
Why? Chemicals leach into the soil?
And into the produce, yes. Might also be harming the good soil bacteria and fungi that keep plant roots healthy.
Most green treated lumber is coated with chemicals to preserve how long they last, eventually... those break down and go into nearby soil. We used the same thing, we left some older green landscaping timbers and just lined them with thicker plastic and replaced the clay-like soil