Hugelkulture failures

Does anyone have suggestions for setting up a layered system using some of the concepts of Hügelkultur inside containers? I’m disabled and collect livestock water troughs which no longer hold water, then fill them with rotting logs from our property, then branches, then horse manure compost. I’ve had some success with the first few I’ve started… getting help moving the materials is the challenge here but my husband just got a new tractor with a front end loader bucket so I’m hopeful! He’s also promised to build me some raised beds made from cedar wood lumber and metal roofing left here by the former owner.

I’m hoping for suggestions anyone has for a system like this, ESPECIALLY for which species of tree to avoid.

Try hank you!

Try to avoid any allelopathic wood such as black walnut, elderberry, sugar maple, & mesquite. When I use hugelkultur techniques in containers I tend to use wood that is more decomposed than a fresh cut log.

How does one deal with quack grass in Hugel beds?
I prepared a Hugel style raised bed (only about 1 ft high but also excavated to 1 foot) for blueberries and was always pulling quack grass over a 7 year period. As I was going to move anyway, I excavated a portion of it to see what was going on and found the logs nice and sponge like with a mass of quack grass roots running through them. The bed was always getting additional pinestraw, horse manure, and cut up branches to maintain its height. I've found that if you are careful not to compact the soil quack grass is pretty easy to get rid of as the roots are pretty tough and come out as a single string....but....if its grown through a log its impossible to get all of the root out.
Any advice?