Raised beds and hugelcultur

rob_lesley30

I am interested in using hugelcultur in raised beds and wondered if anyone had any experience of this.  In particular the type of wood used in the beds.  I recently removed an invasive wisteria and chipped it down.  Would this wood be poisonous if used to put in the base of a raised bed?

wild edges

Interesting question and something I've been wanting to try if I had the right space for it. The RHS website suggests that toxic wood is fine to compost and won't pass on the toxicity. I wonder if it affects how quickly it breaks down though and thus how useful it would be for raised beds? I'd be inclined to use a good mix of wood anyway to give a more consistant compost process.