June Container Garden Tour! What’s Growing In My Front Deck Garden

A lot has been planted over the last month and there’s still a lot more to do, but here’s what’s growing in my front deck garden in early June! This deck is 18×19 sqft and gets full afternoon sun.

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

For daily plant updates, follow me on Instagram @chicagogardener

hey everyone it is time for the June Garden Tour and I feel like I should say the thing that I think I say at the beginning of almost every single one of these monthly tour videos May went by so quickly so may is definitely I would say the busiest month planting wise for me and then there’s still some planting that I’ll be doing this month but our last frost date usually falls sometime in May it’s definitely been a little bit warmer I have some flowers blooming that are not typically blooming in early June this year so that’s really exciting this is going to be the first garden tour of this year where I split the front deck which is where we’re on right now and the back deck into two separate videos until the garden’s really planted up with a lot of plants it doesn’t take me that long to show you around but now that out here all my raised beds are full I think the front deck is closer to being fully planted compared to the back deck but there’s a lot more to show you now and I don’t want to make an hour long video I want to be able to go through all the plants that I’m growing and give you all of information that I can so welcome to my June garden now if this is one of your first times here watching one of my garden tours I do have two 18 by1 19t decks and the deck that we’re on right now I call my front deck because well it faces the street the front of our house and this gets the full afternoon sun so there are actually some plants that I can only grow on my back deck which has the morning sun which a little bit less intense it is still full sun but not the intense afternoon heat where whereas here these plants are getting blasted with the afternoon heat there is not a lot I mean there’s some trees out there but other than that there’s not a lot that’s providing any shade the plants up here have to really be able to tolerate the heat that we get in the summer so with that let me take you around and show you everything that I’m growing on my front deck let’s start off with a sweep of the front deck so I’m standing where I come out onto my deck from inside of our home and this is the view that I I see now something I’m going to try to do differently this year Famous Last Words is not plant as many pots because I’m finding now I know the plants are going to grow and fill in but I’m finding that I’m really liking the amount of walking space that I have back here so we will see if I stick to that or not but usually I feel like if there’s space I need to fill it with plants I’m trying not to do that this year but I do have six raised beds out here and this is the most raised beds I’ve ever had I just planted up the two from epic gardening which are the ones that look a lot newer in terms of the cedar wood color but that’s probably why I don’t feel like you need as many pots because I do have more raised bed growing space the four here that look like they faded because they have are from gronomics and then the other two beds are from EA gardening so we’ll go ahead and start here in the center raised bed which is where I typically plant my favorite plants because again this is what I’m going to see from inside of the house now one thing with early June like I said I do have some plants that are blooming earlier than normal but most of them aren’t flowering yet so it’s kind of hard to see what these are going to look like but I will obviously keep showing you them throughout the months and then by July’s Garden Tour everything should hopefully almost everything should be blooming but in the center raised bed I have four of the super tunia Vista bubble gums in each Corner they are very small right now compared to what they are going to eventually B and I love these so much I’ve planted them in this exact same location ever since I’ve had this raised bed so since I think 2021 and I’ve been growing the super chuna Vista bubble gums ever since I really started gardening so those go in the same section every year I’m not sure yet if I’m going to put anything in the center because typically the two super tunia Vista bubble gums will grow enough to meet each other I’ve had them swallow up some plants in the past so we’ll see if I add anything there or not and then the zenas I planted are four different varieties of the queen or Queenie lime series I do still have the tags here again since they’re not flowering yet so in the front I have Queenie lime with orange I have a Queeny lime red and then Queeny lemon Peach and then the other variety that I have is Queen lime with blush now we are starting to get some buds and it looks like this one which is a queen lime with blush again you can’t really see much of it yet but that is starting to open up so I’m really excited I mean these are going to be blooming probably in the next few days now I’m in the garden a lot for these videos so you definitely will see them before the July tour but I’m so excited I’m probably going to be able to start making bouquets this month the giveaway bouquets that I have downstairs so I cannot wait but that is everything that I have in this Center raised bed here now normally I start from the left but I think I’m going to start from the right this time and just I don’t I know kind of mix up the tour a little bit here down here I have three more of the floret zenas that I got so these were the precious medals they’re new this year I know that everyone is so excited about them so I have four in the back deck which you’ll see in the back deck tour video but I have three left over and I don’t I don’t have room for them but just in case something happens to one of those four or if I do eventually find room for them they are here I have given away some other Zen is down just on the sidewalk but these are so special that I want to keep them at least for now also this flex hose this is the Zer G brand flex hose I have found over the last few years that flexible hoses work the best in my garden because of all of the obstacles I need to get around I don’t really go straight with my hose for very far before I have to turn so I really like the flexible hose the only main issue is that they break or the one I got from Amazon that was cheap broke this is also from Amazon but it’s zero g it was a brand that almost everybody recommended when I asked and so far so good but it hasn’t been a full season yet so I will let you know my irrigation is not hooked up yet that should be coming soon then first in front of the bed I have my Chicago hardy fig I got this from Stark Bros it’s still in a nursery pot because the place that I want to put this well I’m not 100% sure yet so I’m kind of taking my time but there is think you can see there one fig already and I mean it’s the Chicago party fig so I feel like I needed to get it for my Chicago Garden something I am trying to do this year is to move a bit more slowly with my planting and really make sure things are in the best spot for them the spot where I’m really going to love how they look instead of just throwing plants everywhere and the plants that I don’t have space for I am trying to give them away I have enjoyed it so far I feel like I’m making better gardening decisions although the impatient part of me is going a little crazy but that’s why some of the things aren’t in their spots yet although like I said this Garden the front deck is much closer to being finished than the back deck is in this raised bed behind it I this is one I chaos planted so you probably just I don’t know if that was the last video or a couple videos ago before this tour but I think this is going to be fantastic when everything is in flower so on the corners I have the super tunia Vista fuches I did did since filming that get some more parsley because I have some caterpillar friends so they took over one of my parsleys I got three more and I’ve just kind of tuck them into the different beds but other than that I have zenas so I have either peachy colored zenas orange colored zenas purple colored zenas in here the Lilac zinderella are on the edges here I have the zinderella orange on the two sides and then because I did label one of these is a queen lime orange one of these is a queen lime with blush and then this one is a Cinderella Peach and then in the back I have uh this one and this one are King apricot Aster and then I have the capros pizzazz Dalia again those names will mean a lot more once you can see what they look like and it’s not just a bunch of green plants but I’m really excited for this raised bed down here I have another dollia now you’re going to ask me what dollas these are so all four of these are ones that I overwintered last year in the garage I will link down my video showing you how I overwinter my dollas it’s super simple but this was not what I got so I think these were actually Lil labeled as lilac time but they ended up being red so clearly not L loock time so I don’t know what the exact variety is I’m hoping that they flower soon and we’ll be able to see I say hopefully they’ll flower soon because last year was a very odd year for dollas I’ve had dollas since again I think 2021 they typically Bloom sometime in July but last year it seemed like not only my dollas but a lot of dollas of other people near here and in other parts of the country the blooms were delayed I think I had one that didn’t even start blooming until September now luckily they do last into the fall until the killing Frost but it was just a very odd season for dollia so I’m hoping that this year because I have the most I’ve ever had before they do Bloom kind of on their normal schedule but these like I said were more of a bright red color so definitely not lilac time but I don’t know what they are now in my lowest raised bed you also saw me plant this one up recently I have a mix here of some different plants so I have the mizeria zenas here which are a combination of like red and pink on the petals but again no flowers to show you yet then I have two champagne Hol Hawks that I got from grow for me gardening they sent me some seeds so I am excited I think they’re supposed to bloom the first year so I’m hoping we get some blooms I also sewed the sunflower seeds but I don’t think any of them have sprouted yet hopefully that should be coming soon and then I can’t remember if in that video I did throw in the other Asters and status or not but I have status Rose in the back Corners both of those will be the same variety and then I’m pretty sure this is the tower shamwa Aster I had them I wanted to put them in the beds so I did will it be overcrowded maybe but the sunflowers are single stem so they don’t go out very far horizontally they just grow up tall vertically so I think I’ll be okay coming over here then are two more doas now these I think were labeled correctly these should pen Hill watermelon they are much further along than the other two so that’s just interesting I’m hoping the extra height means that they will flower sooner for me here and then in front I have the remainder of my seeds which these will probably be given away um because they’re not any that I completely love and need like the flette but I do want to hold on to them just for now in case anything dies or I find a place to tuck them in I have my miniature Peach Tree here this was also from Stark Bros let me look up the variety honey babe miniature Peach there are a few different places I’m thinking of putting this but because I don’t know 100% for sure yet it is going to stay there for now this raised bed behind it is kind of my purple and green bed at least that’s the plan but I do have on the corners the super tunia Vista jazzberry which is really pretty and we’ll trade down the sides I do have some aalis that started growing early this spring just coming out from between the slats and I was like you know what that looks cool I’m going to keep it I also tucked in the third parsley here as well into the center of the bed the zenas here are going to be lime green which I am excited about um they are called Envy so I’m assuming you know Green With Envy and I think that’s going to be a good compliment to all of The Queeny lime series that I have because none of the Queeny limes are like pure lime um the queen lime with blush is the closest but I I’m envisioning bouquet made with all five of those together and I’m really excited um In Here Also I do have the haaster light blue Hatter Hagen light blue there’s a lot of words in that name China Aster one there and then I tucked another one back there in the corner I if you can tell put some of the gladiolus ball bulbs that I got from Proven Winners back here cuz I didn’t know where to put them so I put them here now I’m pretty sure these will be pink so I think that’ll still go with my green and purple and bluish color scheme in here and then I also have two stock or not stocks two status one status there and one status there I’m pretty sure these are the blue status I’m not 100% sure but if my labeling was correct those should be the blue status now this was my native perennial bed originally I’d SE some seeds in the fall so anything that I think still is a native perennial and not a weed like these I’m letting grow and just seeing what happens if it turns out they are a weed I will pull them if not I will either leave them here or I might transplant them I’m not sure yet but I didn’t want to get rid of anything that I wasn’t 100% sure was a weed then we come over here to my veggie patch which makes me really happy so well I do have some flowers mixed in here as well but look here I already have a little baby cucumber this is the space saer cucumber so it’s a it’s a dwarf variety from soite seeds I’m so excited for this it’s not ready to be harvested yet but it will be soon and then I have three different varieties of sweet peppers basically they’re all the sweet Canyon but I have yellow up front orange behind it and red behind it I think I might have mentioned this in the video where I planted up my veggie patch but along the lines of you know taking time with planting make sure that I’m really putting things where I want them I’m also making sure that I’m only growing things I really love again limited space I don’t want to waste something on let’s say an eggplant that I grew for a couple years when I don’t really love eggplant or okra that was cool to grow and have some ochra but we barely used it so that’s why I’ve switched to just I like sweet peppers but than jalapeno peppers I use them more often so that’s why I’ve switched to only sweet peppers in my garden and then the last one over there is a zucchini plant so I have zucchini three peppers a cucumber then in the larger grow bags in this first one here I have basil I also have this is a tomato I did not start from seed it was one from Burpee but it is the Unicorn red I like cherry tomatoes better than like standard size tomatoes in my garden just because I don’t have as many issues growing them so again if I don’t have a ton of space then I want to make sure I’m growing things that I don’t you don’t usually have issues with so that’s what I’m doing I also did sew in here which haven’t come up yet but I did sew in here some nesters and some maragold and actually did these nestum seeds I think these might be Nome sheeds that popped up so let’s just squish you back down over here I did add in also from Burpee the everleaf lemon basil because I love lemon flavored herbs and lemon basil sounded fantastic so I just put that in the front here and then I have four giant Baner zenas which will get easily taller than this wall I have two of two different colors so I have two of coral and I have two wine and those were just kind of my favorites from growing the mixes so now I choose the colors that I like the best and then this last grow bag here of the 30- gallon grow bag is almost identical to this one except the Tomato variety is different and this is one where I kind of swap my labels around I know it’s a cherry tomato indeterminate tomato variety but it’s either Gumdrop or one that has yellow fruit and we’ll see soon enough because there are some Tomatoes there starting to form so I have also the basil up front I did so nerum and marold so hopefully those come up soon that is my veggie patch then on this side of the pathway behind the center raised bed I have one of my raspberry bushes and I have my rhubarb plant um we’ll get to herbs in just a second but over in this corner I have my other raspberry bush again one of these I can’t remember which one now was propagated from the other one they both produce raspberries every year um they are the heritage red raspberries I got them from Stark br in like 2019 or 2020 the original one um but raspberries are very easy to propagate this on the left here is what I’m calling a mystery plant it started coming up in this raised bed which I needed to plant with gamina but I want to know what it is so I took it out and I’m hoping it’ll flower soon and I’ll be able to identify it I’ve asked with posting photos and I got a ton of different answers so this as it gets larger looks I don’t know more familiar to you please let me know I also have some little Maple seedlings popping up from these trees that think they’re going to grow in between the cracks in my deck so that’s the kind of weeding I do in my garden now as far as this raised bed this is my gamina bed and this is one where I’ve never had gamina flow this early I I think usually it happens in July but I have with the raspberry cream variety at least a good amount of flowers here now some of these look better than others the gamina plants and I did notice a difference between the two types of Jiffy Pete pellets that I used now this shouldn’t be surprising but I had two different size pellets and the ones that were growing in the smaller ones I should have repotted but I didn’t and those are definitely more stunted because they didn’t have as much room to grow than the ones that were in larger pellets I also started these 10 weeks before because they are one of my more slower growing annuals but I’m going to go back to eight weeks because even though they are larger and starting to flower earlier I don’t think they liked being inside in those pellets for that amount of time so I am going to go back to 8 weeks before last frost for all of my gamina seeds for next year to the left of the bed because it fit I have a pot here with two sunflowers and these were actually volunteer sunflowers that were from this bed where I grow sunflowers every year so they are the sunrich summer prant sunflowers um sunflowers don’t always transplant the best best these were very dramatic for a few days but they survived and then I also threw in a black Holly Hawk so those are definitely all spaced closer together than they should be but I don’t think the black Hol Hawk blooms the first year so that’s why I figured I would put it in there with sunflowers and we’ll just see what happens then I have my final raised bed here and this is the one that now has all of the perennials in it so up front I have two Prairie onions those I did start from seed and then kind of around the edges I can’t remember the varieties cuz I got them last year but I do have eona in the back two corners are blackeyed Susan Rebeca this is some sort of eona and then that’s another eona right there and then these I’m still not 100% sure what they are so I someone else said they think this is a lily it looks very Lily like so I think it is a lily I that means it was not something I started from seed so I might remove that and then I still can’t remember which one that is I think it’s a milk lead but we’ll see as it gets a little bit taller oh and then I did add in two of the new for 2025 perennials from proven winers so designer threads Golden Needles which I think I have the dead head which again isn’t my strong suit to remember to do that does not say no deadheading necessary and then Touch of blush heliopsis helianthoides those are really really pretty but these are the two that I decided to put in here so I am interested to see how this bed does year after year if things get too close together as they grow I will transplant or divide or do something with them but I am excited about the idea of having a bed that just comes back year after year and then down below it I have my little tin of strawberries and this is a bucket metal galvanized bucket that I just drilled some holes into and I think this one looks like it’s ready to eat this is my Herra setup right now I still don’t exactly know what I’m doing with these three but last year I grew well 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 n 10 11 12 13 because it fit perfectly on the available racks this year I have more from all of the mint but I am excited so I’m still kind of figuring out this space and what I’m going to put where but these are the herbs that I have so top row left to right I have lemon thyme garlic chives basil mint strawberry mint regular time up here center row here I have leak orange mint chocolate mint bottom left is Rosemary oregano lemon balm there in the center pineapple sage and apple mint and then the three Rogue ones right now are my banana mint my lemon bergamont mint and my pineapple mint and behind the herb rck is my flower cart this I got was it just last year no two years ago from Deer Park Iron Works I wanted something that was pretty but also gave me more vertical space it’s also where I store like you can see here my watering cans my old sunflower stocks that I use as supports in the garden this is one of the areas where I kind of just threw extra plants over here last year and I want to change it up I think I’m going to stick to like white flowers over here make it look a little bit more calm so down here in the bottom I have the snow white gumina again blo already which is crazy to me it makes me so happy I do have one of the Flora Solas here as well again I think I’ll put it over here somewhere but it’s just hanging out in the nursery pot until I figure out what I’m going to do there’s nothing in that pot to the left and then here I think I’ve just kind of been setting plants where I think they’re going to go to see if I like them and I think I like this so I’m pretty sure that with the Silver Falls dandras here I don’t know because they will spread I don’t know if I’m going to put all four four in this planter box or maybe three and one somewhere else but I do think I’m going to include those over here and then around the corner well what’s trailing up my flower cart and will completely cover the roof very easily is my morning glory now we’ll go around and I’ll show you my little caterpillar friends in just a second but this corner too is also my storage corner I have my garbage bag I have the extra cages I haven’t used yet this is this little metal tin is what I use to take my plant waste from this deck through the house to the back deck where I have my Tumblr composter I have my aquapot lights that I’m going to put somewhere else so anything that’s kind of just left over gets tucked in this corner or the things that I’m using in my garden and now let me show you my caterpillars and then over here is my little butterfly cage so I had this cage last year I never used it but I just wanted to give the two caterpillars that are in here now there were three one already left but I wanted to give them just a little bit of extra protection because I did watch a wasp eat one last year and I know it’s a circle of life but I was very sad um and I thought it would be interesting to actually watch them turn into butterflies so I have two caterpillars in there now like I said there was a third one it left and left a big pile of poop behind so that might be I don’t know hanging out under the deck or something like that but I do have those two in there and they have taken my parsley that’s I had to buy more so that is my front deck Garden in early June I’m so excited so yeah it feels good to have everything planted up in terms of the largest raised beds I still out here need to work on my flower cart but I’m really trying not to plant anything else out here she said knowing she was lying um but I really am trying to keep the open space that I have so I can easily move around and I don’t feel too congested in my own garden but this is my garden in early June so that is the front deck I will give you a tour of the back deck in the next video yeah let me know if you have any questions I’m really excited about everything this year because I feel like every year I well I learn a lot more but I plant more of what I love and that just makes me love my garden even more so thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video bye