May Container Garden Tour🪴 What’s Growing On My Rooftop Decks!

It’s May and that means it’s time for a tour of my front and back deck gardens! It’s the calm before the planting storm that is about to commence in my garden.

2024 Garden Tours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2eE6Aek2I&list=PL-x6xtohdIXZVvgBxMd6Lmy3yUK5LcnpF

Where Containers Are From Video: https://youtu.be/yTleNOsBkMo?si=gyzaRNxxo2MOul_X

~ Where Things Are From ~
** Any Amazon links are affiliate links and I earn a small commission when you click on these links to purchase products. All products, except for the Aquapots, were purchased with my own money.

Zero G flexible hose: https://urlgeni.us/amzn/zero-G
Gronomics elevated beds (front deck): https://gronomics.com/all-elevated-garden-beds/
Charming Bench Company elevated beds (back deck): https://thecharmingbenchcompany.com/products/wood-country-rectangular-cedar-planter-tl-006-tl-007-tl-008-tl-009
30-gallon grow bags: https://amzn.to/3C4tvZU
7-gallon black grow bags: https://parkseed.com/smart-pot-fabric-planters/c/smart-pots/
5 and 7 gallon beige grow bags: https://amzn.to/3qgiWjR
Herb rack: https://www.gardeners.com/buy/lattice-rectangular-tiered-plant-stand/8596373.html
Two tiered plant stands: https://amzn.to/3Vk1WXx
Flower cart: https://amzn.to/43unbGU
White vertical planter with buckets: https://amzn.to/3UVp1j6
Aquapot Lite: https://www.provenwinners.com/category/store/aquapots-proven-winners-0
Wheels for 30-gallon grow bags: https://amzn.to/3qfRxib
Caddy for smaller plants: https://amzn.to/3WIhjra
ProvenWinners drip irrigation: https://www.provenwinners.com/waterwise
Carpathen drip irrigation: https://amzn.to/3OLiCUk
Table and chairs: old from Wayfair
Couch and coffee table: Hampton Bay collection from Home Depot

What I’m wearing: https://rstyle.me/+j1hYK8rTbiNGoSYAORmDRw

For daily plant updates, follow me on Instagram @chicagogardener

hi everyone it’s May it’s nice outside and the garden is so much greener than it was in the April Garden Tour I am so excited I feel like right now it’s the Calm before the garden storm where I’m just going to start tossing everything into my raised beds so this is the May Garden Tour I can’t believe we’re here this year is flying by but I’m so excited that we are so may is definitely the busiest month for me in Chicago Zone 6A because our last frost date usually we like to use Mother’s Day it has been a little bit warmer but I still think I’m going to wait until like the second or third week of May to get a lot of my plants out just to be safe so as a quick refresher if this is your first time here I Garden on two rooftop decks in Chicago I’m currently on the west facing deck and then we also have an east facing deck both decks get full sun there are very minimal spots that get like part shade full shade but that’s mostly because they’re just covered by something else on the deck and did I say there were three stories up I think I did but those are my Gardens so every month and I think I’ve been doing this now since 2021 maybe 2022 I’m not sure but I do monthly garden tours to show you what things are looking like right now and this is definitely the one where I’m most excited and like oh it’s it’s actually Garden season like it is here it is time so let me show you what my Gardens are looking like at the beginning of May giving you a quick scan of the deck from where I come out on onto the deck from our house so here in my largest of the raised beds are still perennials that I planted in the fall well perennials I planted in the fall poppy seeds that I threw out in the middle of winter because I had an urge to garden and then forgot that I did that so at some point in a few weeks I need to get my zenas out here because this raised bed is where I grow my zenas I think I’m going to do the queen lime Series in this bed this year so I planted Rebeca eona in the fall just to get some fall color I’m going to dig up and Transplant all the ones that sprouted because I wanted to make sure they actually came back before digging them up and planting them somewhere else for example this one does not appear to have survived the winter whereas most of the rest this one obviously has this one this one I see Little Sprouts on there don’t really see Sprouts on that and it feels I don’t know kind of like it rotted but the ones that are coming back I am going to transplant the poppies I will leave here although some of them are pretty densely planted again because I just threw the seeds into the bed so I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with those yet they’re not getting transplanted they’ll Bloom here but I’m probably going to have to remove some once I get my zenas out I also have a random pansy that survived the winter that I can pull out of here any pansies you see on this deck they were planted in the fall so I didn’t actually plant plant any this spring and if the winters are mild enough they can come back but we’ll get to that bed in just a second heading around to the left first I have my herbs out and pretty much they’ve been staying out now all of these I got from a garden center but I did want to show off so this stand is from Gardener Supply I believe it’s out of stock it’s been out of stock for a while but I really like the stair case step because it allows my herbs to grow up I had something that didn’t have like complete clearance above so I like how this works for my herbs I grow them all in 8 in terra cotta pots just because I like the look of it so here’s where we’re at right now this is not all of the herbs that I’m going to be growing uh but it is the majority that I have potted up so far so let’s go through these quickly I will have a whole video once I get the rest of my herbs setting up this whole section with the irrigation and whatnot but I have garlic chives right here I have the oregano Greek oregano here my chocolate mint again my must have number one herb in the garden I have leaks which are looking a little rough from some of the wind but I’m hoping they will come back actually let’s get you out of there I have lemon balm I have parsley I have the basil mint which I just got and I love pineapple stage the strawberry mint which I’m also excited for and just realized I haven’t eaten a leaf I don’t think so I need to do that that and then my Apple mint so again I have more fruit mints coming I have some more herbs over there I still need to pot up but I ran out of terracotta pots so I need to get some more of those on my table and chairs which I got from Wayfair I don’t take the best care I mean I Do cover them over the winter but like there’s rust one of the chairs the seat is breaking but I really like them um but those are from wafer years ago out here hardening off I have two of the champagne Holly Hawk my cucumber and my zucchini plants again my plan we’ll see how this works out is to only plant one cucumber and one zucchini but sometimes I can’t bear to let things go so we’ll see how many I actually do end up planting this is a bucket I use because I have oh was going to show you my garbage can and there’s a giant pile of pigeon poop right next to it yeah talking about you they are no longer afraid of me at all I’ll get back to them in a second but I have my garbage can over here that basically anything I can’t compost I put in there so I only have a garbage can out here which means this is normally on the back deck and I’ll carry anything over here through the house because that’s how you get from one deck to the other in this container behind it I just have a grow bag on a wheel platform that I will be potting up an aqua pot self-watering pot I will be potting up and then over here is my well what is right now filled with radishes and lettuce what will be filled with gamina and I’ve just not had the best spring Seasons the last two years I sewed three rows of radishes there’s really only some that came up and I seed them back in February so they’ve had a lot of time but I’ve sewn three rows let’s Harvest you cuz you actually look like at least you look pretty only one row came up I’ll tell you why in just a second and the weather is so erratic now in the spring that it’s like we get burst of heat then burst of cold and burst of heat and it just kind of throws everything off oh and then the one plant that came back that I don’t know what this is so again if you have any idea what this might be let me know so the reason I don’t think a lot of my radish is germinated is because of birds so I’ve been gardening here since 2020 I’ve never really had an issue with birds destroying any of my plants in fact I used to grow blueberries before I kept losing them to blight and I never had to net my berry bushes or anything the birds didn’t come and steal my berries there were always plenty for me well then I saw one of the pigeons that’s no longer afraid of me and I think I have this video if I do I’ll put it in here um it was with its front and it jumped in here and just started pecking up my radishes and I was like oh that makes sense why not a lot of them are coming up but even with that I still just feel like the spring Seasons here like I said we don’t have a consistently long enough period of those cool temperatures to have my plants really Thrive and it’s just kind of bumming me out so let me know how your cool seasons have been it’s much better in the fall I feel like we have more consistently cool Temps at the end of the growing season than at the beginning and that’s why I started my radishes in February this year because last year we had a kind of a similar thing where I started them at the normal time but we got to like 70s 80 so quickly that there wasn’t really enough time for the radishes to form and then I started them earlier this year in February and they still are just not doing great even the ones that the birds haven’t taken so yeah let me know how your cool seasons have been it’s just I’m hoping we have better seasons in the future cuz I’ll still plant cuz it’s not like I’m not going to plant coming over here then I have my two raspberry bushes one two one of those I propagated from the other so two for the price of one and also those and then the rhubarb I leave outside all winter don’t do anything and they come back so that is fantastic because that is not true for most of the plants but those two are looking great this one rhubarb plant is looking great this is the furthest along it’s ever been at the beginning of May there’s another one back there that hasn’t come up that we’ll get to in just a second and then I have a pot of strawberries here that I left outside and are coming back and then three grow bags which are empty right now and will have my tomatoes and some giant zenas in them heading back over here then so this raised bed original plan was to plant natives in it I somehow have Lies coming up there are plants growing out of the cracks which I actually find kind of sweet but I don’t have a ton of germination now I did mention before in I may was last Garden Tour that there were also birds pecking in here no I didn’t see them pecking but it looked like there were holes and now that I’ve seen that I think they might have eaten the native seeds or Sprouts that I sewed in the fall I don’t know we do have some flowers coming up but I feel like I also winter threw some seeds in here so I don’t know we’ll see what comes of this bed but I’ll probably add some annuals to this one maybe some zenyas this stand with the grow bag on it well the stand goes over in my herb rack the grow bag I actually think I am going to get rid of it so it works great but I’m going away from the beige color I thought I would like having beige bags and I do but you can see they show all of the dirt actually I don’t really mind it’s kind of like an ombre brown I don’t know we’ll see if I use it again or not this year there’s nothing in it right now this is my other rhubarb and again I planted these in 2020 it came back every year now I was actually planning to oh you know what I might feel something coming up right there okay maybe I’ll give that a little bit more time but I actually was going to empty it out because I mostly grew rubar because it reminded me of my grandpa and I don’t eat a ton of it and again with limited space I might use that pot for something else then I have a bunch of other stuff that I brought out including my dollia so these I pre-sprouted in April I think at this point I have N9 of the 12 and it’s been under 4 weeks since I planted them nine of the 12 have sprouted which is fantastic so this one lilac th Fairway spur which one are you pen Hill watermelon other pen Hill watermelon Thomas a Edison and what are you the other Thomas a Edison now if you get impatient like I do you can kind of like gently push away the soil and see if you find anything I haven’t seen anything from this yet but it’s still too early for me to get super stressed and worried about it now behind the dollas I have the two plants I started in February for the me TV appearance while it has been nice to have a Zenia blooming already I mean this plant looks Haggard it was in a way too small container for way too long I wasn’t really taking care of it so I’m not allowing myself to keep that in the garden I might allow myself to keep this cantaloupe not sure yet though in this bed here I have oh these are so pretty but all of these pansies came back from the fall I will be pulling them when I plant I don’t know exactly what I’m going to plant in here other than my sunflowers which I always do those are the stocks from last year in fact is that a sunflower coming up I think that’s a sunflower coming up in the bed I might have a volunteer which is exciting anyway these are going to be pulled my peas again they’ve been growing so slowly hopefully I get some peas before I pull those as well for my warm season flowers it will definitely be flowers in this bed over here I have two fruit trees I have forgot what this one is the honey babe miniature Peach from Stark Bros a Chicago hardy fig also from Stark Bros Stark Bros is where I got my original raspberry as well in 2020 or 2021 now these are still in Nursery containers because I don’t think they’re going to go on this deck I also don’t think they’re going to go on the back deck I think they’re going to go somewhere else and then the last things that are growing out here are the other herbs I need to pot up so Rosemary regular Thyme and lemon thy and then I do have I’ve been using Zer G flex hoses which are recommended flexible hoses I have found for my deck work the best because there’s a lot of obstacles I have to get around I’m in a small space with a lot of pots so I’ve been loving this I still need to get my irrigation hooked up I will we’ll show you that process when we get there I have the other aquapot right here and then oh I almost forgot over here I did putt up my morning glory because I needed to get it outside it was climbing up everything and I think temperatures are good enough and you can see it’s already climbing up the cage so I’ve done this the last two years now but basically I Trail it up here it climbs across the top of this flower cart which I got from steel iron work I forget the name of it it’ll be linked down below but I use this to hold like as a pretty I mean doesn’t look that pretty right now but as something pretty to hold all my gardening equipment out here most of this will be out on the deck somewhere once everything’s in place um and then I also do put some pots on this as well but I really love having the Morning Glory Vines growing on top of this so that is the front deck the west facing deck now we will head out to the east deck which I think actually has maybe even more things growing on it although now that I’m looking at here there’s quite a bit out here too so here is the east facing deck definitely my favorite VI and I’ve been guarding on the front deck since 2020 I just took this over last year so I got the raised beds last year everything will be linked down below I maybe had some like overflow plants here last year but it’s it’s part of my garden now so first of all I have all of my seedlings out here this is what’s going to be planted up throughout the month of May into the raised beds into grow bags I’m so excited I have over here my Gina this is the tallest myrina has ever been I started it March 1st which is the earliest I’ve ever started it so it’s already about 8 weeks along that’s done great this is mostly my asers again not great germination on the older as ERS really good germination on the seeds I just got for this season they’re looking a little yellow over here I think I need to hit this with some fertilizer on the next water here I have some of my status I have one more Morning Glory if I need it I have my tomatoes my Cosmos another whole tray of gumina I have way too much gumina but luckily people are always willing to take free plants so they always go to a good home and then I have my two trays of Zen is there so those are all my Seas they’re just out here hardening off they’re probably good to stay out here now but I still don’t trust the birds to leave them out here unattended overnight in this pot behind my seedlings I just got this a couple days ago but this is the Valentino white Bonia I just think it’s so pretty it’s mostly white with yellow centers and then a hint of like a coraly pink on the edges it is is it say part sun and shade yeah part sun to shade which again this is full sun but my Bonia handle Sun out here but Bonas and impan are what I plant the most in the parkway down front or my front pots where I need part shade or shade let me show you something exciting so well hydrangea definitely dead all the branches Brown inside but look at my rose it’s not dead I thought it was dead last tour so here is what happened with the rose I stored it in the garage over winter it dropped all of its leaves from last season it put out a bunch of new leaves for this season and then overnight all of those leaves fell off so new round of leaves all gone I thought it was dead and a lot of people said because I did a scratch test the stems were still green you know leave it see what happens and it’s leafing out now there are some branches that don’t look great so I’ll will prune those out in a little bit but I kind of just wanted to leave it and see what happens see where it leavs out and then I will cut back anything that I I think is dead but I’m so excited I’m so excited that is not dead coming over this way something else that doesn’t look great are my two Holly trees and you can see here all the leaves are brown break into that song now so basically I got the trees last fall for $20 each they are zone five which if you’re overwintering in a container you should really go two zones lower which would be a 4 a for me and to feel really safe I’ll go to Zone 3 but I got these say saying that okay they’re only $20 each if they die I won’t be sad well I do feel sad but not as sad as if they cost $100 each however they did survive winter and that’s how I know that what kills most of my plants or rots my bulbs over winter is the rain because it survived winter it flushed out some new buds that were swelling and ready to push out leaves and then we got so much rain and it stayed so cold for so long with constant rain that I think the soil just held on to that moisture for too long and I think the roots are rotting I’m assuming that’s what’s happening with this because it was not cold when it started to die like it was like maybe 40s and rainy but it wasn’t during the winter survived winter fine however I have done a scratch test but now I’m thinking that it’s just like slowly dying from the tips so let me turn this back around so like I’ve scratched in some of these before and like the center right there is green and you go up and it’s just Brown and kind of getting wrinkly so I think I’m going to have to replace this unless anyone tells me I should keep it and see what happens but yeah I mean it’s not not looking great right now now I also planted a ton of bulbs in my raised beds and I tried to tarp them through winter again it worked over winter to keep the moisture out but you can see there’s not many bulbs in here at all because once the bulbs started to grow like these Wild TPS were one of the first ones to grow those were hitting the tarp the tarp had to come off so I might look for some sort of like I don’t know Greenhouse cover type solution something that’s going to stay off the bed so that the Tulips can grow or I might just buy pre- spreaded tulips in the spring and not feel bad about continuously rotting my bulbs I did throw in some pansies to make myself feel better and these make me exceptionally happy to look at I’m also going to harvest some of these to press but yeah rotting bulbs has definitely been an issue for me and again survives winter so it’s not the cold they start to sprout and then the rain kills them in here are the proven Winter’s bulbs that I planted we have the dalest sprouting in that one nothing spreading yet in this one fingers crossed that happens soon I have one of my two columnar apple trees there’s one there’s two you need two to cross-pollinate except this one bloomed about a month before this one which is now flowering so they did not cross-pollinate with each other but that’s okay they’re still small so I think I think like Technically when they’re still this small you’re supposed to wait until they get larger for them to actually fruit but now I’m worried are they ever going to bloom at the same time someone did recommend freezing pollen like Gathering it yourself from this one and freezing it and then hand pollinating so we’ll see if that happens but I really want these apple trees to actually make apples at some point um down here I have my hydrangea collection so two hydrangeas here I have a piie that’s coming up I don’t know if I’ll have to use a cage or anything for it this first year and then I’m hoping I can store them somewhere where they won’t rot over winter I also popped just a couple Bonas in there because I I wanted to um over here I have aliums coming up which is exciting so these bulbs did not rot thankfully here and here those should be some beautiful purple blooms very soon my Bania this is Peppermint Patty I’ve been in love with this this I overwintered in the garage also it’s just stunning it only flowers well it’s only going to flow flower for a little bit longer in Spring and then it’s just the leaves but this has made me so happy over winter and it’s been flowering probably for about a month the bed behind looks full but that’s because I filled it after some of the bulbs rotted so anything that’s a Snapdragon pansy what else did I toss in here I think I tossed in some ranunculus it just I added those myself but at least I got some of these strawberry cream tulips they were Chinatown tulips I was so excited for that I think that’s one of them and it’s well I mean it still feels tight in there but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to bloom anytime soon so these beds will probably empty out relatively soon and get them replanted with my warm seasoning manuals I have two more of my shower dollas another Lil loock timey and another Fairway spur more hydrangeas and all of these hydrangeas except for one I’ll do a whole in-depth hydrangea tour once I figure out where I’m getting these set up but all of these except for one I think stay between 2 to 3 feet whereas one of them is like 5 to 6 feet and I got to figure out which one that is but some of them are like just barely leafing out some of them are leafing out a lot some that are already flowering that one is just getting its buds do you have a name no you don’t so I’ve also got to figure out what you are and then another peie and same thing in here although I did have some luck with I guess the mcer coming up but wild tulips did fine not a lot of other stuff did great and then another dine holly tree although this one the stems look well no I was going to say a little more green than brown but n it’s not great I need to I need to take these out now coming over to this corner just an empty pot for now that I need to plant in here’s another tree that I have this is my Beach Plum first year overwintering it and I think it is down to a Zone 4 now I’m trying so hard to be patient like the stems themselves look great there are buds on the stems if this focuses on them I don’t know if it will but there are buds on the stems I did Google to see if I’m just being impatient and the very first result said that this flowers oh no sorry no yeah starts to flower in miday and it’s one of the last stone fruit trees to flower and I was like yes fantastic and then the result right below it said they flower in early spring which miday is not early spring so scratch test I’ve done a couple it’s green trying to scratch the whole thing to make sure that it’s alive but looking at it it looks like it’s healthy it just hasn’t Lea out yet so I’m hoping that’s the case because I really enjoy having it you do need two in order for them to cross-pollinate which I was told you only need one when I bought it but I think I’m just going to stick with one because I’m got it more for how it looks as a tree or a bush than how like it would actually produce Beach plums for me so that’s how that looks and then here we have nette who has been emptied out of most of her spring flowers except for the violas cuz look how pretty I couldn’t bring myself to remove these yet but I had two lips in here I had ranunculus uh what else did I have a hn in here so those I pulled we going to be planting in here soon I already put in G frina because I had an urge to and I just wanted to see what would happen I don’t I think this is a white one and then Carmine so I think I’m going to do like three Gina three Zas and then some patunas spilling over and at first I was trying to be careful of like thinking where would I want the white gum Frey and I need to plant it in the right pot but because these pots can be moved I can plant things where I want them now and if I realize I want to reorganize them I can do that I also threw back here two more of the morning glories that I grew here in the same position last year to Trail up the trellises here and then over here just the non pretty part I have another hose I still need to set up my irrigation more pots that I’m going to plant up soil all of that over in the section but here’s a sweep again of the back deck so some things are dead but more things are alive and that is my goal so yeah I am so excited that it is like really in the thick of gardening season now um like I said it’ll probably be another week or two before I start emptying out and putting my plants out just to be safe overnight I usually like to say like above 50° at night for most of my warm season annuals because in containers although they heat up faster they also cool down faster because it’s just a lower volume of soil so I don’t want to put things out here and then have the soil temperatures drop too much um so yeah 50° is kind of my cuto off for most on Warm season annuals for things like tomatoes or my Peppers or my basil I might wait till it’s like 55 pushing 60 and then we’ll see what happens because I remember 2 years ago 3 years ago I was out here covering up my Peppers at the end of May early June because the temperatures dropped so you never really know what’s going to happen but for the most part planting out around this time usually works just fine I’ll keep you updated let me know if you have any questions on my garden and I will see you in the next video oh also well one I’ll link down all the past monthly tours but two I can tell this is probably going to be long and not even everything is planted so I think going forward I’ll be doing a separate tour of the front deck and then a separate video for a tour of the back deck so thank you so much and I will see you in the next one bye now you’re waiting for me to leave so you can eat some seedlings and poop on the deck you can’t fool me