This post contains affiliate links — if you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Some of the Birdies beds on this page were bought with my own money; the ones I received for free in exchange for review are clearly marked in each product's section. I only recommend products I actually use in my own garden here in Northeast Florida. Using code MEADOW doesn't cost you a penny — it just tells Epic Gardening you came from me, and helps me keep making free content.
Last updated: April 23, 2026 This is a living review page. New Birdies product reviews get added as I finish writing them — scroll to the bottom for the update log.
Intro: why this Birdies review page exists
There are a lot of “best raised garden beds” listicle posts out there written by people who don't own any of the beds they're ranking. This isn't one of those.
I bought my first Birdies raised bed in December 2021, assembled it in February 2022, and planted it out that April — right around the time I started my YouTube channel and (coincidentally) had shoulder surgery. Four growing seasons later, I've added more Birdies beds to my Zone 9B Florida garden than most people have plants in their yard — including models Birdies has since discontinued. I grow fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, and the occasional experiment in them, and they've survived Florida sun, Florida rain, hurricanes, freezes, raccoons, and a lawn crew that doesn't respect my landscaping choices.
This is my complete, honest review — one page, every model, regularly updated. If you've been trying to figure out which Birdies bed is right for your garden, start here.
Table of contents
- Every Birdies bed I own (at a glance)
- Are Birdies beds worth it? My 4-year verdict
- Which Birdies bed should you buy? (quick buyer's guide)
- How to use the MEADOW discount code
- Individual product reviews:
- Birdies Tree Surround
- (more reviews below — added weekly)
- Frequently asked questions
- Update log
Every Birdies bed I own (at a glance) {#inventory}
| Product | Bought / Received | Status | Where it lives in my garden |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tall 8-in-1 Metal Raised Garden Bed (29″) | Dec 2021 (bought) + Mar 2023 (free for review) | ★★★★★ Daily driver | Main vegetable garden |
| Large Extra Tall | Received free | ★★★★★ Daily driver | Main vegetable garden |
| Tree Surround | Sep 2024 + second unit (bought both) | ★★★★★ | Around mailbox + around a tree |
| 2′ x 2′ 2-Pack | Bought | ★★★★☆ | Dragon fruit trellis base |
| Round 29″ Extra Tall | Bought x 2 | Unopened — still in box | Planting plan pending |
| Medium 15″ Short | Received free | Unopened — still in box | Planting plan pending |
| L-Shape 6-in-1 (discontinued) | Bought × 6 | ★★★★★ | Fruit trees + native flowers |
| Urban Short 9-in-1 (discontinued) | Received free | ★★★☆☆ | |
| Patio Beds (discontinued) | Bought x2 | ★★★★☆ | Patio kitchen garden |
(Each product links down to its full review as those sections are added.)
Are Birdies beds worth it? My 4-year verdict {#verdict}
Yes, with zero hesitation. The short answer is that my 2021 beds still look and perform like my 2024 beds, which is the rare thing in outdoor gardening gear. Paint holds. Steel doesn't rust at the ground line. Hardware hasn't loosened. No bed in my garden has failed or needed replacing.
Here's what four years of using (and abusing) Birdies beds has taught me:
What I love:
- Build quality is consistent across the line. Whether it's the original 8-in-1 Tall from 2021 or the Tree Surround from 2024, the metal gauge, paint quality, and hardware feel identical in the hand. Birdies didn't cheapen the smaller or specialty products, in fact, they actually got better.
- Assembly is easy. Most models go together in 15–45 minutes with basic tools. The Tree Surround was under 10 minutes on my living room floor.
- They handle Florida weather. Intense sun, heavy rain, hurricanes, freezes — four years in, mine look a lot like they did on install day.
- Raccoons can't chew through them. This matters more than you'd think.
What I'd warn buyers about:
- Birdies beds are not cheap at full price. They're worth the money if you're going to garden for more than a season or two — but if you just want to grow tomatoes in containers for the summer, a cheaper option is fine.
- Shallower models (Short, Tree Surround) heat up faster in Florida sun. That's physics, not a product defect — but plan your plant selection and water accordingly.
- Some products have been discontinued. If you see a model you want on this page and can't find it on Epic Gardening's current site, check Facebook Marketplace — Birdies beds hold resale value for good reason.
The short version: If you're building a garden you intend to keep for at least five years, buy Birdies. If you want to try gardening for one season before committing, start with a smaller cheaper bed and upgrade to Birdies when you know you love it.
Which Birdies bed should you buy? (quick buyer's guide) {#buyers-guide}
I get asked “which Birdies should I buy?” more than almost any other question. Here's the short version:
| If you want… | Buy this |
|---|---|
| Your first raised bed (and you want one that lasts) | Birdies Large Extra Tall — my most-used bed, no-bend height, enough soil depth for anything |
| A bed around a tree, mailbox, or lamp post | Birdies Tree Surround — also protects mature trees from weed-eater damage |
| A small-space garden (balcony, patio, narrow side yard) | Birdies 2×2 2-Pack — matched pair at a great price |
| A focal-point round bed | Birdies Round 29″ Extra Tall — same soil depth as Large Extra Tall in a round footprint |
| Maximum soil depth for root vegetables | Birdies Large Extra Tall or Tall 8-in-1 / 29″ |
| An accessible garden (less bending, joint-friendly) | Birdies Large Extra Tall — tall enough that most tasks happen at waist height |
| A specialty shape you can't find elsewhere | Watch for Birdies' limited-run releases — they rotate L-shapes, Urban/Short models, and Patio beds in and out of the catalog |
Scroll down for the full review of each model I've owned.
How to use the MEADOW discount code {#discount-code}
The MEADOW code works year-round at Epic Gardening and stacks on top of sale pricing during Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
🛒 Shop Birdies beds on Epic Gardening → — use code
MEADOWat checkout for 5% off, year-round.
It takes about 15 seconds:
- Click through to https://shop.epicgardening.com/?ref=MEADOW (or any product link on this page)
- Add what you want to your cart
- At checkout, paste
MEADOWinto the discount code field - The 5% discount applies on top of any sale pricing already showing
If you're shopping during a current sale window, I keep the live deals list updated here: Epic Gardening Memorial Day Sale 2026 →
“3 years later — still learning” — video
A retrospective on what I've learned in three-plus years of gardening in Birdies beds. If you want the longer, less-edited version of this whole review, it's in this video.
Individual product reviews
Each product review below is a full standalone section — you can jump to whichever bed you're considering using the table of contents above. Reviews are added as I finish writing them; the update log at the bottom tracks what's written.
Birdies Tree Surround Raised Bed
I've been shopping Birdies raised beds since 2021, and by now I've got a proper collection — tall ones, short ones, round ones, rectangular ones, and specialty pieces like the one I'm reviewing today. The Birdies Tree Surround showed up on my radar when I needed to upgrade the tired upcycled flower box around my mailbox, and 14 months later it's still doing its job beautifully — no rust, no chipped paint, no regrets.
Quick verdict: The Birdies Tree Surround is a well-built metal bed that works beautifully around trees and around mailboxes, lamp posts, or anything vertical you want to plant around. Assembly is almost suspiciously fast (a dozen screws on the living room floor), the hardware quality matches the rest of the Birdies line, and after 14 months in Florida sun and afternoon heat, mine still looks like it did on install day. If you've got a tree you want to protect from the lawn crew's weed eater — or a mailbox you'd like to stop apologizing for — this is the bed.
🛒 See the Birdies Tree Surround on Epic Gardening → — use code
MEADOWat checkout for 5% off, year-round.
What it is + what I paid
The Birdies Tree Surround is a rounded corner, square-shaped metal raised garden bed designed to sit around the base of an existing tree without disturbing its roots. It's made from the same steel as the rest of the Birdies raised bed line, in the same neutral colorways, and it assembles in segments so you can place it around a tree (or in my case, a mailbox post) without lifting a one-piece ring over the top.
What I bought: One Birdies Tree Surround, receipt dated September 2024, installed around my mailbox in early February 2025. I've since added a second one around a tree elsewhere in my yard — more on that install in a future update to this page.
Price: I'm a bargain hunter and I rarely pay list for garden gear. Tree Surround list is $99, but I paid just under $48 on sale in September 2024, and the sale price usually lands in the $50–70 range during Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Wait for one of those windows, then stack MEADOW at checkout for 5% more off.
Why I bought it: the mailbox upgrade that had been on my list too long
The mailbox area at the edge of my driveway had a flower garden box that was upcycled from some containers that would have gone in the trash — and honestly, it had done great for a long stretch. But by summer 2024 it was clearly tired. The wood was failing, the corners were splitting, and the whole thing had that this-used-to-be-a-project energy that tells you it's time to stop patching and start replacing.
I'd seen the Birdies Tree Surround on Epic Gardening's site and thought it would look good out there — and it doesn't much matter to the bed whether the thing in the middle is a tree or a mailbox post. Metal lasts a lot longer than upcycled wood. That's the whole story.
Assembly: suspiciously easy
I assembled mine on my living room floor in a few minutes. It's barely a dozen screws.
One note:
- I have arthritis in my hands and I drop screws. If you do too, work over a towel or a cookie sheet so the dropped ones don't roll into the carpet. Not a Birdies problem — a me problem — but if you're shopping for a raised bed with accessibility in mind, this one's short assembly window is a genuine plus.
No confusing steps. No missing parts. No swearing. That's rare for me on a flatpack assembly.
Installation: working around a mailbox with a bad knee, and sod
The install itself took longer than the assembly because, as it turns out, the ground underneath my old mailbox garden was a minor archaeological site.
Site prep I wish someone had told me about:
- Remove the old structure first — in my case, unscrewing and breaking out the bolts between the upcycled containers. Save the dirt if it's good; I used mine in the new bed.
- Dry-fit the Tree Surround in place before you dig. I used the segment screws as my visual centerlines to get the bed centered around the mailbox post. Then I pushed sticks into the ground at the outer edge to mark the footprint.
- Cut the sod along the stick line so you have a clean edge. You're not digging the whole footprint deep — just enough to remove grass and roots so the new bed sits flat.
- Level as you go. If the ground is soft, you can press one side deeper to level. If it's hard, shim with a handful of extra soil underneath.
One accessibility note, honest. I have a bad knee and a bad foot. Digging on a project this size is a little too much for me, and creates pain that lasts too long. So I worked a little harder with my hands and arms and took more time. You can decide to make something work, or you can figure out how to not make it work — I opt for making it work. If you're in a similar boat, the Tree Surround is a much smaller dig than a full rectangular bed, and that matters.
What I planted + what's doing well
My mailbox is on the west side of the house — morning sun and serious afternoon heat. I planted:
- Petunias for color that hits from the street
- Society garlic for structure, heat tolerance, and the quiet bonus that critters don't love the smell
Both have done well. Petunias eventually cooked off as summer deepened and I swapped them for something tougher like portulaca and now phlox. Society garlic stays year-round.
A few pro tips from experience:
- Layer the soil with old plant debris at the bottom — rooted plants from the previous bed, old mulch, whatever's already broken down. It fills volume, feeds the bed as it decomposes, and saves you buying extra soil.
- Pack the soil as you fill. It'll still settle a little, but less than if you dump and walk away.
- Top with mulch immediately. Even if you're planting within a week, mulch blocks weed seeds from finding the bare soil. Save the old (non-contaminated) mulch as a middle layer under fresh mulch on top.
14 months later: how it's holding up
I went out and checked. Short answer: it's holding up beautifully.
- Paint: Zero chipping at the bottom of the bed — and the lawn guy is definitely trimming close. I can see no visible damage from the weed eater anywhere.
- Rust: None. Not at the ground line, not on the hardware, not anywhere.
- Structural: No shifting, no lean, no loose segments. Still as square as the day I installed it.
This matches what I've seen on my other Birdies beds after four-plus years — the paint and steel handle regular landscape maintenance without looking beat up.
One thing I'd do differently
The bed is fine — I'm the one who made the job harder than it needed to be. I planted this out in Florida heat when the flowers were still fresh from the nursery pot, on a west-facing site that gets the full afternoon sun, and the mailbox is farther from the water hose than any other bed in my garden. That combination meant it took a lot of early management to keep the transplants from stressing out before they rooted in.
That's not a Tree Surround problem — it's a transplant-timing problem, and any shallow-soil bed with new transplants in peak Florida heat would behave the same way. But if I were doing this install again, I'd either plant in winter (in my zone 9B Florida garden) or harden the seedlings off more aggressively before transplant, or start from seed directly in the bed when the weather was right.
If your install site is west-facing, far from water, or you're setting this up in the hottest part of your growing season — plan accordingly. That's the kind of thing no product listing tells you.
Why it also works around an actual tree: weed-eater defense
A use case the product listing doesn't make loudly enough — a Tree Surround around an actual tree protects the trunk's bark from weed whip damage. Lawn crews move fast. Weed eaters don't care that a tree is 20 years old. A metal surround bed sitting around the trunk means the weed whip can't reach the bark in the first place.
(I have a second Tree Surround doing exactly this job around a tree in my yard — I'll add a full update on that install in a future page update.)
Not every raised bed product solves two problems at once. This one does.
Hardware quality, honestly
I own several different Birdies models — the Tall 8-in-1 from 2021, Large Extra Tall, the 2×2 2-pack, round beds, long beds — and the Tree Surround is made from the same metal and same paint as everything else in the line. No corners were cut because this is a smaller or specialty product. If you've been happy with any other Birdies bed, you'll recognize the build here.
That consistency matters because it means:
- Paint weathers the same way (which is to say: very well, in my experience — my 2021 beds still look good)
- Edge finishing is the same (tidy, not sharp unless you're grabbing a screw wrong)
- The steel gauge feels identical in the hand
Who this is for (and who it isn't)
Buy the Tree Surround if:
- You have a smaller tree you want to plant around without damaging its roots
- You want to stop a lawn crew's weed eater from chewing on a tree's bark
- You've got a mailbox, lamp post, or birdbath pedestal you'd like to frame with a real garden bed
- You have joint issues or accessibility needs and want a small-footprint bed that's fast to assemble and doesn't require deep digging
- You already own Birdies beds and want matched hardware/colors for the rest of your yard
Skip it if:
- You want a bed for serious food production — grab a rectangular Birdies (Large Extra Tall is my pick) instead
- You need full accessibility height for a wheelchair-friendly garden — the Tree Surround is a ground-level ring, not a raised tall bed
Where to buy + how the MEADOW code works
The Tree Surround is sold direct through Epic Gardening:
At checkout, paste MEADOW into the discount code field for a 5% reader discount. The code works year-round and stacks with sale pricing during Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
If you're shopping during a sale window, I keep a running list of Birdies deals here: Epic Gardening Memorial Day Sale 2026 →
Frequently asked questions
Is the Birdies Tree Surround really just for trees? No — it works around mailboxes, lamp posts, birdbath pedestals, or any vertical feature you want to plant around. Mine is around a mailbox and it looks like it was made for it.
How long does the Birdies Tree Surround take to assemble? A few minutes. It's roughly a dozen screws assembled in segments, small enough to do on a living room floor before you carry it outside.
Can I install a Tree Surround around a mature tree without damaging the roots? Yes — that's the whole design purpose. Because it assembles in segments, you don't need to lift a one-piece metal surround over the tree. Clear the grass inside the footprint, level the base, screw the segments together around the trunk, and fill with soil and mulch. Don't bury the trunk flare. One important caveat: the Tree Surround is about 2 feet wide, so this works best for saplings, ornamental trees, or specimen trees — not mature oaks or maples.
Does the Tree Surround protect trees from lawn crew weed eaters? Yes — this is one of its quieter benefits. A metal surround around the trunk physically prevents a weed whip from reaching the bark, which is a common cause of slow tree decline in landscaped yards.
What's the difference between a Birdies Tree Surround and a regular Birdies raised bed? The Tree Surround is a open-center metal bed designed to fit around an existing vertical feature (tree, mailbox, post) without a closed footprint. Regular Birdies beds (Original, Large Extra Tall, 2×2, round) are closed-shape beds for standalone planting.
(More product reviews will be added here over the coming sprints:)
- April 23, 2026 — Page launched with Birdies Tree Surround review, buyer's guide, and 4-year verdict.
- Coming Soon:
- Birdies Large Extra Tall
- Birdies Tall 8-in-1 / 29″
- Birdies 2×2 2-Pack
- Birdies L-Shape 6-in-1
- Birdies Urban Short 9-in-1
- Birdies Patio Beds
- Birdies Medium 15″ Short (future — when I plant it out)
- Birdies Round 29″ Extra Tall (future — when I plant it out)
Frequently asked questions {#faq}
Are Birdies raised garden beds worth the price? Yes, if you're committing to a garden for at least five years. Four years into owning mine, none have failed, shifted, or needed replacing — and they still look nearly as good as the day I installed them. Compared to wood beds that typically need replacing every 5–8 years, the math works out in Birdies' favor over time.
Do Birdies beds rust? Not in my experience. After four-plus years in Zone 9A Florida — including hurricanes, heavy rain, and constant humidity — I have zero visible rust on any of my Birdies beds, at the ground line or anywhere else. They're galvanized steel with a coated finish designed for long outdoor exposure.
Are Birdies beds safe for food gardens? Yes. The steel is food-safe and the coating doesn't leach. I grow vegetables and fruit trees in mine without concern.
How long do Birdies raised beds last? Based on my own beds (the oldest now 4+ years) and Birdies' published specs, the beds are designed to last 10–20 years. Mine show no signs of slowing down.
Where's the best place to buy Birdies raised beds? Epic Gardening is the direct retailer. Use code MEADOW at checkout for 5% off year-round, stacking with any sale pricing.
Is there a Birdies discount code I can use? Yes — MEADOW works year-round at Epic Gardening and stacks with Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday sale pricing at checkout.
Which Birdies bed is best for beginners? The Large Extra Tall — it's the workhorse, tall enough to save your back, deep enough for any crop, and gets discounted during every major Epic Gardening sale.
Related reading
- Epic Gardening Memorial Day Sale 2026 — current Birdies sale pricing
- How Much Soil Do I Need? Raised Bed Soil Calculator — math for filling your new Birdies bed
- Birdies Raised Garden Beds Black Friday Deals — next big sale window after Memorial Day
Update log {#update-log}
Keeping this public so readers can see the review is actively maintained.
- [SPRINT 1 4/23/2026] — Page launched with Birdies Tree Surround review + buyer's guide + 4-year verdict
- [SPRINT 2 DATE] — Added Birdies Large Extra Tall review
- [SPRINT 3 DATE] — Added Birdies Tall 8-in-1 / 29″ review + Birdies vs Cedar comparison notes
- [SPRINT 4 DATE] — Added Birdies 2×2 2-Pack review
- [SPRINT 5 DATE] — Added discontinued-models flex: L-Shape 6-in-1, Urban Short 9-in-1, Patio Beds
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