elcome to my early June balcony garden tour! 🌿
This shady container garden gets only some morning sunlight, but you’d be surprised how much still grows here. From shade-loving flowers to lush foliage, I’m sharing what’s thriving right now in this low-light urban space.
Whether you’re working with a small balcony, a shaded patio, or just curious about container gardening in the shade, I hope this tour gives you some inspiration!
🌱 Plants featured:
Hydrangea serrata ‘Blueberry Cheesecake’, Hydrangea Surfing Safari Series, Clematis jackmanii, Clematis ‘Josephine’, Clematis montana ‘Mayleen’, Rose ‘Mary Delany’, Sedum ‘Little Missy’, Acer ‘Garnet’, Acer ‘Orange Dream’, Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’, Heuchera ‘Silver Gumdrop’.
➤ Don’t forget to like, comment your favorite shady plant, and subscribe for more small-space gardening content!
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🌿 Other Videos You Might Enjoy Watching 🌿:
▶️ Fruits and Vegetables for shade
https://shorturl.at/5957X
▶️ What can you plant in your shady balcony garden
https://shorturl.at/8UF0M
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#balconygarden #shadegarden #containergardening
good afternoon guys how are you hope that you’re all doing well today i would like to give you a quick tour of my balcony garden show you how it looks at the beginning of june i’m going to give you an update on some of the projects we completed together in my previous videos i want to highlight a couple of plants that i’ve been really enjoying around this time of year to hopefully give you some inspiration and ideas on what you can plant in your own garden but i also want to show you a couple of failures uh because truth be told i haven’t had much time to garden recently and some of my plants did not appreciate it and they threw a bit of a tantrum if i can say so uh so all of this i’m going to show you in today’s video if you are new here hi i’m dominica and just as a reminder um i garden in zone 8a we have hot and humid summers and cold and relatively dry winters um and my balcony is northeast facing so it receives a little bit of morning sunlight but it really depends on the location on the balcony not all the plants do not receive the same amount of sunlight uh and i garden on the seventh floor so it’s very windy up here most of the time so let’s go let me show you how the balcony is looking at the beginning of june all right so this is how i usually go out on my balcony we will take a peek to the right but we will start on the left side today to change things up a bit and we’ll start in the veggie garden so despite my garden not receiving a lot of sunlight i managed to grow some edibles i have plenty of videos with inspiration on what you can plant in your shady container garden but let me show you what i’m growing in my own garden this season so we planted this vertical planter together in one of my earlier videos this year so we have arugula we have spinach that is absolutely um massive it’s bolting i should start harvesting it then we have alpine strawberries they’re not doing so well and i think the reason for that i’ve had them for so many years and the only thing i changed is i added um a nice layer of compost a compost that i have never tried before and i think that compost might have been a bit too nutrient rich and it kind of scorched my plants a little bit because i did lose one plant over here and this one doesn’t look super hot either uh but anyway i grow two types of alpine strawberries i have yellow one there and a classic red type that i grew from seeds over here we have two different types of lettuce and we have micro dwarf tomatoes over here we have nina neutron funny plum orange and i think another nina neutron as you can see they are covered with tomatoes micro dwarves actually do pretty well on the north and northeast facing balconies because they stay fairly small and compact so they don’t require like a lot of energy you know what i mean to produce uh a massive hydrangeanger hydrangeanger serata blueberry cheesecake that is just starting to bloom i’m also trying to grow some um zucchinis i have had success with zucchinis before and i figured might as well grow them again this year so i have a green variety and a yellow variety over here they are starting to produce as i turn around you can see some of the summer flowering bulbs and tubers that we planted all of them are sprouting beautifully not much to show you yet cleatis jakman that is just starting to flower and that’s lovely actually because yesterday i haven’t had any flowers and today i came back from work to a beautiful surprise beautiful clatis and what i love with my clatuses i have three clatises in my garden here is another one here is clatis josephine and this one is already one of my absolute favorites look at these blooms you guys this clatis started to bloom around the same time a little after my clatus montana that i’m going to show you in a minute that’s over there and the flowers last for so many weeks it’s absolutely incredible they are just now starting to you know to fall apart but it was such a beautiful clatis that bloomed for such a long time like the flowers you know last incredibly long time i’m really surprised by this variety on this side we have a climbing rose that i’m trying this is an experiment it’s a rosemary delanei or delaney um and the first year was absolutely amazing it produced a lot of flowers this year it’s not doing nearly as good as it did last year we have a bit a little bit of a soulfly larvae problem if you notice similar um damage on your rose leaves look at the underside of the leaves you may be surprised you will find a little larvae i usually just pick them off by hand and remove the most damaged leaves but yeah um not sure how this is going to go with the rose we’ll wait and see moving forward on the floor here we have a beautiful hooka just starting to bloom and new addition to my garden it is this sedum uh little missy i think this is the the name i thought at first that it was a speckled blob but i see the pink tinge on these tiny leaves so i think it’s a little missy in my head planter while i’m here i’m also going to show you my railing planters that we planted together in a recent video look at them starting to fill out looking absolutely beautiful we have beonia gustav and we have uh this pink euphoria and it’s also a good moment for me to give you an update on the rest of the micro dwarf tomatoes when i planted them they didn’t look like much because i just came back from my holiday so they were kind of stretched and in the lack of light but look at them now looking absolutely healthy absolutely beautiful covered with blooms and each one of them i have i think one two three four five six plus the ones in the vertical planter so nine micro dwarf tomatoes they are all doing really well growing healthy producing tomatoes no ripe tomatoes just yet but each one of them already has set fruit i have six different varieties total all right and now we are entering um the failure zone but just before take a look at my new hydrangeanger isn’t she the most beautiful hydrangeanger well maybe not the most beautiful but she’s super cute look at those ruffled petals i’ve been wanting to add a new hydrangeanger to my garden but i didn’t really have space for it and the annabel type hydrangeanger that i had here before i explained that in my last video i had to get rid of it because it was just not doing well the um stems kept breaking in the wind and there was like literally nothing left of that hydrangeanger and i picked this one it’s a surfing safari series and i think they are absolutely gorgeous macrofilas do really well in shady gardens uh they are a bit tricky to grow but once you figure them out they are absolutely beautiful and they perform really really well a little quick look on the bulbs that we planted that’s funny because this pot receives a little bit more sunlight than these two and you can see the enormous difference all of them are sprouting but this one is uh really far ahead similarly in all of these containers on the floor i have a couple of things that i planted from bare roots all right now the failure zone so starting with my ailby that was growing so beautifully and so healthy and i had the temptation to repot it into a larger pot and that’s kind of what happened and we’ve had temperatures in low30s already and i try to keep it well watered after repotting but i’m not sure if the plant will bounce back i might as well just prune it all and see if it bounces back or not another failure here as you can see if you follow me long enough you probably know the story of this japanese maple that is just driving me crazy because it’s doing this every single year it leaves out it looks absolutely stunning everyone keeps asking what is this gorgeous japanese maple variety but then at the beginning of summer it defoliates for no reason at all and it’s not even a question of i mean here it’s in in a perfect kind of setting it’s protected from the wind it still receives bright indirect sunlight and i’ve had it in different spots in my balcony garden i previously couple of years ago when i didn’t have my arch yet i had it over there where it received a little bit of morning sunlight and it would scorch and it would defoliate uh still even though it received a little bit more sunlight it did not enjoy that at all so then i put it in this corner so that it’s more protected from the wind it doesn’t receive any direct sunlight it just receives bright indirect sunlight but it still defoliates so i think i’m going to give give up on it i’ve i spoke with a couple of gardeners who also grow this variety in container and so many people have troubles with this particular variety because let’s take a look let’s take a look around cuz let’s if you turn around you see there is my red maple that is looking absolutely healthy beautiful red foliage looking healthy looking beautiful but orange dream just keeps doing that i’ve had this plant for like six years and it does this every single year no matter what i do it defoliates at the beginning of summer so i think i’m going to get rid of this one and perhaps buy another maple because i really love maples they tend to do really well in in shady gardens um other than that it’s not that bad i lost i think two plants over here i lost my fern and i lost my bran but because my hostas are now more mature they kind of take up a lot of space beautiful podilm everyone keeps asking about this plant looking a little funny tropical and exotic popilm spotty doty and look at my hooka being absolutely destroyed by vine weevils i have to come out here at night and try to hunt them because they are munching on the leaves of my grass and cleatis um montana meen as i said i really love the fact that montana meen it was planned but at the same time it kind of worked out perfectly as well because montana blooms early spring then josephine blooms mid-spring and then the jacmani on the arch picks up uh at the beginning of summer so i have a continuous blooms so this is how the balcony is looking at the beginning of june not very lush yet but we do have a little bit of color from all of these beautiful perennial plants oh and one filler that i forgot to mention i used to have a blueberry a beautiful blueberry bush that had so many flowers i was so excited to harvest many blueberries this year but then again i was tempted to repot my plant and just literally days after repotting it died and i was so upset because you know it takes time to grow blueberries because they they produce uh best on three and four year old wood so i’ve had this plant for four years now and it just died on me and i was really upset and so i still don’t know what i’m going to replace it with uh perhaps another berry bush but not sure just yet i i don’t really want to go with another blueberry unless i find plant that’s mature enough to already you know give me some harvest because i don’t want to wait another four years to harvest blueberries so and do think about this if you have any suggestions they are more than welcome uh on what kind of bush would you plant in here all right so this is how it’s looking all right so this is how the things are looking in my garden i’m curious to know how are the things looking in your garden what’s blooming at the moment what plants are you enjoying let me know in the comments section um so here’s a quick update from me hope that you enjoyed it um and we will see each other again in the next video hope you have a beautiful week see you soon
28 Comments
Wonderful video as always! From my balcony garden in western Romania I'm enjoying lots of blooms : hibiscus, hydrangea, lavender. It's a bit sad because I know some of them will get obliterated by the heat in the following months but thanks to some of your help I'm trying to mitigate the damage. And also I try to enjoy while they last 🙂
You have so many nice plant in difficult conditions, so inspiration full thanks and good luck with new maple, 👩🌾🪴
How nice is looking everything! Have you forgotton , your japanese maple is a phoenix bird and needs ash , to be able to rebirth?😁😉 Both hydrangeas are lovely, how massive is the serrata! But the japanese maple is the absolute highlight!!!Eastfacing balcony, zone 6b, roofed balcony-, 4,4 square m- what we have in common , except the love for plants and for a balcony garden is a thuya, heucheras- mine are orange and the same begonias semperflorens and ivys. I have lots of cupressus macrocarpa , some petunias for a splash of colour and I wait for my overwintered canna lilies the grew and bloom. Edible only herbs. Thanks for sharing , it is a pleasure to watch your balconytours.
If and when you have time, would it be possible for you to update us on your nosy neighbor and how the bamboo separator resolved the issue, or if you experienced further attempts of peeking?🤔 Also, how is the insect/bee hotel doing? I love your videos and was wondering about these topics, and forgive me if I missed any recent updates.
That hydrangea is absolutely gorgeous!
Failures are even more valuable than successes. Thanks for sharing. Could you please tell me how you fertilize edible plants so that they are safe to eat?
I am also about to lose both of my astilbes. My terrace is in zone 7b, but it is southwest and the temperatures have risen in 1-2 weeks from 12° to 35°. I think the astilbe just doesn't like the sun at all, nor does it like too dry air, because I water them abundantly, the roots are ok, but they keep drying out. There are new shoots, but I don't have much hope. One of my clematis is also not doing well – Clematis Julka had clematis wilt and I had to cut off all the canes except one. The other two – Skyfall and Akaishi are ok, and the Skyfall will soon bloom. Otherwise, something is eating my plants, but somehow randomly. I find small holes and gnawing on the leaves of my jalapeno plant, nasturtium and one of the clematis and they are not even next to each other, but I can't find the culprit. Unlike you, I use pesticides, fortunately my terrace can be closed to keep bees and other polinators out until the effects of the poison wear off.
Ale pięknie u nas w Polsce dopiero teraz po długich deszczach i burzy wszystko zaczęło kwitnąć.
Hi Dominika. So good to hear the birds singing. 😊 🐦
4:15 That clematis looks like a dahlia. Very pretty. 😊
6:45 Beautiful hydrangea.
We celebrate our wins and learn from our losses. Thanks for sharing this enjoyable garden tour. ❤😊
It's a shame with the blueberry… maybe try a thorn-less blackberry instead? I think they do ok in the shade.
Looks great. Keep up the good work.
Watching from Philippines.
I love your balcony garden.
I will watch your other videos .
Nice sharing dear
Beautiful flowers 🌹🌹🌹🌹
Great moment for me
❤A beautiful balcony full of flowers
Excellent work! Would love to connect and grow together. 👍🔔
Hi Dominika ! Thanks for the garden tour, I'm also impressed by your Josephine clematis (although I prefer the looks of her blooms at the beginning but I love that her flowers bloom for a long time !) I'm sorry for your garden fails. At least it's an oportunity to try something else. I agree with you about this japanese maple. Maybe someone with a big garden can try and save it but it doesn't seem to like life in pot. Are you eying a specific variety to replace it yet ? Your hostas look great ! About courgettes, I have trouble growing them in my back garden, I feel like my soil is too compacted for them, so I mighjt try and put some on the side garden and in a pot. I know I will put my cucmbers in pots because when I tried 2 years ago they did really well in a small pot. I'm a bit late with my garden tour videos, I recently uploaded the april one, I still have to edit the may one 😁
For replacing your blueberry bush, consider saskatoon berries (June berries, Amelanchier alnifolia). They are much nicer tasting (more tangy but also sweet) than blueberries and not a commercially available fruit for various reasons. They are native to the North America so not sure of availability in your parts. Mine has fruit in its 3rd year in 2 gallon pot from a small twig in a 3 quart pot on a North facing balcony. You may also consider raspberries, mulberries or figs. Good luck.
Your balcony is impressive! I grow Tayberry, raspberries (Versailles variety from Baumaux) in containers with good results and not much efforts. I have two baies de Mai Lonicera caerulea but I'm still waiting for fruits. Well it's only their second year on my balcony.
Lovely garden ❤
I have similar garden decors like lanterns and bird cage as yours. I have crassula in my head planter and missy sedum in a plain pot.
Beautiful♥️
I love your video from india 🇮🇳
Hi! First of all, I love your balcony garden sooo much and you’re such an inspiration for me and my balcony garden. Do you have a video already on pruning Japanese maples? I have a second year sapling in a container and it’s thriving, but I’ve never pruned it and I don’t want to miss out on shaping it or keeping it healthy. Thank you in advance and happy balcony gardening!
Your Orange Dream I think it needs to be in the company of other maples or trees to be able to generally defend itself. It's usually a maple that's sensitive to temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. It adapts better in some locations, but in others it becomes stressed. I don't know, maybe you could try putting them together. My maples grow best together and in full summer sun. They're very demanding, but anything is possible. Is there another maple tree with similarly colored leaves and a more resistant color, perhaps a "Summer Gold"? Without direct sunlight on your balcony it might be a lighter green, you'll have to try it to find out.