Cedar in hugalculture

Can you use cedar in a hugal or raised beds

It might depend on what you mean by cedar, but I lined a hugelish raised bed with trimmings from Thuja occidentalis and experienced no trouble. It's slow to rot and so might have a lesser sponge effect than woods that go punky more quickly, but at least it seems not to be weeping antimicrobial compounds into the soil.

I have used Rocky Mountain Juniper and noticed no ill effects. People who work clearing the juniper complain that it is too "hot" when decomposing which probably means its greenery breaks down fast and has lots of nitrogen.  My only complaint is that breaking the wood is difficult and painful due to extremely flexible wood. In fact, Native Americans used the wood as bows.

william mccoy wrote:Can you use cedar in a hugal or raised beds

this is eastern red cedar

william mccoy wrote:Can you use cedar in a hugal or raised beds

Juniperus virginiana

I do not know eastern redcedar, but I would not use western red cedar in a hugel. It takes 2x as long to decompose as grow, so it would take a long time to benefit the growing plants. It is also one of the most valuable types of wood one can find for many other uses before being used for composting, which is what hugelkultur beds are effectively doing. Decomposing and decomposed western red cedar wood probably helps grow cedar and native symbiotic companion plants, like salal, huckleberry, salmonberry, and blackberry or ferns, but I would bet the heart wood is allelopathic for awhile for many plants. Maybe I am wrong though, and its allelopathy comes more from the root exudates than the tannins in the wood. This seems to be the case with pine, fir and spruce, and with the jugalone in walnuts and their genus.

Christopher Weeks wrote:It might depend on what you mean by cedar, but I lined a hugelish raised bed with trimmings from Thuja occidentalis and experienced no trouble. It's slow to rot and so might have a lesser sponge effect than woods that go punky more quickly, but at least it seems not to be weeping antimicrobial compounds into the soil.

If Thuja rots slowly, isn't that a sign that it contains anti fungal compounds, since as far as I know fungi are what break wood down in the forests?