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My Urban Summer Garden

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An Urban Summer Garden tour with cozy seating areas, loads of flowers and a pretty vegetable garden! Lots of ideas for your own outdoor space.

Hello friends, I’m so happy that you are here! I’m participating in the Seasonal Simplicity Summer blog hop series hosted by my friend Krista of Happy Housie, and today we’re sharing our outdoor spaces with you! In case you missed my other posts in this summer series, you can find my Summer Garden Mantel here, as well as my Summer Kitchen here, and my No Sew Outdoor Tablecloth/Picnic Blanket here. And be sure to visit all of the pretty outdoor spaces in the links at the bottom of this post, there is SO much summer inspiration for you. xo

As part of this little tour, I’m actually going to show you two areas of our back garden, the patio and my little vegetable garden…I’ve packed quite a bit into our little city yard ha!

a cedar platform deck with wicker chairs, an umbrella, table and flowers

My Summer Patio

Last summer while we were on l*ockdown we decided to redo our deck…I mean we figured since we were at home why not do some renovation work! We’ve been in our home for over 15 years and the deck was starting to show it’s age so it was time to replace it anyway. We didn’t want anything fancy, we just wanted a simple single tier deck off the back of the house that was big enough for all of our outdoor furniture.

a cedar platform deck with wicker chairs, an umbrella, table and flowers. in the forefront is a raised garden bed, gravel and planters of flowers

And that’s what we got!  I love it so so much…our original deck was actually two tiers which didn’t make it easy to place any kind of furniture, but now it’s a dream! I have all this space for our outdoor couches, chairs, planters, the umbrella and barbecue! It seems like a lot, but we spend as much time as we can out here and I want it to be inviting and comfortable.

a cedar platform deck with wicker chairs, an umbrella, table and flowers, and there are two dogs

It looks like a lot of seating, but we’re a family of 5 and we’re also hoping to open our home to friends and family again this summer…I can’t wait! There’s a place for errrrrrrbody.

a wicker egg chair on a summer deck. in the background are trees and flowers

I love the shadow the sun makes on the pillow on this chair!  It looks like a sun!

A space to dine and relax.

Whenever possible we eat every meal we can out on the deck…our summers are so fleeting where I live so we try to soak them in!

a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a plant sit on a table. in the background is a wicker chair

I actually really really love summer dining…for all of our meals I like to line all the food up on our kitchen counter, buffet-style, then let everyone help themselves and head out on to the deck to eat. It feels so relaxed and nice.

a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a plant sit on a table. the table is surrounded by chairs. in the background is a wicker chair
a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a plant sit on a table. the table is surrounded by chairs. in the background is a wicker chair
a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a plant sit on a table. the table is surrounded by chairs. in the background is a wicker chair and a raised garden

Just add flowers.

No summer patio is complete without flowers!  I used to pack our deck with flowers, but I don’t really like to do that anymore…with all the furniture and our dogs, it can start to feel pretty crowded. So I’ve kept the flower pots to a minimum here, and instead have most of them down in the garden part of our yard.

a raised planter of peonies sitting on a deck. in the background are wicker chairs and another planter
a planter of bluegrass, a planter of pink flowers and a wicker candle holder

I just had to share this picture of my little shadow boy Blu…he is everywhere I am, and I mean everywhere. Either at my heels or somewhere staring at me…case in point, see below. Staring, smiling.  haha

a planter of bluegrass, a planter of pink flowers and a wicker candle holder. in the background is a black and white dog

A simple and pretty lighting idea.

While I was arranging my deck space I saw this wire tomato cage and thought how nice it would look wrapped in a string of fairy lights…it looks really pretty at night!

a deck with a small grey barbecue, a Monsterra plant and a white metal Monsterra wall hanging
a tomato cage wrapped in a string of fairy lights

In the night garden.

I especially love our garden in the evening just as the sun is going down…everything is still, the twinkle lights are glowing and everything smells and looks so fresh. It’s my favourite.

a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a basil plant sit on a table. in the background are wicker chairs and a tree with patio lights

a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a basil plant sit on a table. in the background are wicker chairs and a tree and fence with a string of patio lights

a wicker egg chair on a summer deck. in the background are trees

A perfect spot to read a book.

a wicker egg chair on a summer deck. in the background are trees, adirondack chairs and flowers

a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a basil plant sit on a table. in the background are wicker chairs and a tree and fence strung with patio lights

Let there be shade!

This is actually what our deck looks like 95% of the time in summer…we almost always have the screened umbrella up for shade and it makes the most lovely little outdoor room.

a table and chairs sits under a patio umbrella

Now that you’ve seen the patio let’s turn to the vegetable garden which is right off the bottom of our deck!

a cedar platform deck with wicker chairs, an umbrella, table and flowers. in the forefront is a raised garden bed, gravel and planters of flowers

My Urban Vegetable Garden

My little urban vegetable garden is my absolute favourite space in my yard. Again, last spring at the start of everything, we put a lot of focus into making our yard a place we wanted to spend time, but also a space to engage the kids with gardening and growing food.

a wooden raised herb garden leans on a fence. it is surrounded by string lights, trees and more plants
a vegetable container garden of tomatoes, potatoes and a stacked vertical herb garden

So we created our urban vegetable garden. It’s amazing how much you can actually grow in a small space. If you want to see how it looked last summer and all the veggies I was able to grow, you can see that in this post here.

A raised Urban Vegetable Garden in a wire enclosure.

A simple raised vegetable garden.

This summer I’m hoping to grow even more!  I’m growing beans, carrots, beets, onions, garlic chives, chives, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, celery, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, rhubarb, raspberries and herbs. I also have several planters full of cut flowers for beautiful summer bouquets…sweet peas, 10 different types of dahlias, anemones, peonies, daisies, cosmos, lavender, and sunflowers. So fun.

A raised Urban Vegetable Garden in a wire enclosure.
A raised Urban Vegetable Garden in a wire enclosure.

Tiered Herb Garden

When we were having our deck done, the guy who built it for us also built this fantastic tiered herb garden!  I love it so much. I’m growing 6 different herbs in here, plus two boxes of lettuce greens. So many plants in one planter…this is a really great option for small yards and limited space. I think I’m actually going to add another one and fill it with strawberries.

Vertical Herb Garden

I can’t wait until it fills out!

A Vertical Herb Garden full of herbs and lettuce
A Vertical Herb Garden full of herbs and lettuce.

Now it’s time to just sit back, watch everything grow and enjoy this space as much as we can…winter comes fast here.

two adirondack chairs sitting on gravel
a basket of cutlery, a yellow glass jug and a basil plant sit on a table. in the background are wicker chairs and a tree with patio lights

Thank you so much for allowing me to share my little urban garden with you!  I hope you found some ideas for your own outdoor space.

Take a quick video tour!

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More Summer Outdoor Spaces!

For more outdoor inspiration, make sure to have a look at these beautiful spaces, there are ideas for everyone!

The Happy Housie // Joanna Anastasia // Cassie Bustamante // The Tattered Pew

Life is Better At Home // Tatertots and Jello // Finding Silver Pennies // Lemon Thistle

Me! A Pretty Life // Dans le Lakehouse // Clean & Scentsible // Willow Street Interiors

Inspiration for Moms // She Gave it a Go // Grace in My Space // Deeply Southern Home

Life is a Party // Nina Hendrick // Happy Happy Nester // Craftberry Bush

Maison de Cinq // Hallstrom Home // House by Hoff // My Sweet Savannah

Happy Summer!

Hi I'm Jo-Anna Rooney, the creator, director, baker, maker and home decorator here at A Pretty Life in the Suburbs! I'm sharing a simple home life through fresh and easy recipes and uncomplicated home tips and home decor.

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14 Comments

  1. What a beautiful space Jo-Anna! I really need to figure out somewhere to put an egg chair as I just want to cuddle up in one everytime I see one. Love the photo of your dog poking out through the flowers!

    Reply

    1. Thanks Jenn! I LOVE our egg chair…I actually have 2 but I kept one inside because it’s so cozy! And isn’t that picture of Blu so cute…he’s always lurking hahaha

      Reply

  5. So many great ideas! I love that trellis structure that you built over your grill and those planters are fabulous. I love everything! I pinned your ideas to my outdoor board to share 🙂

    xoxo

    Reply

  7. Fellow dog mom here…is the chicken wire around your garden there to keep the dog out?!? Trying to come up with something to keep mine out that is also aesthetically pleasing and I love yours!!

    Reply

    1. Hello fellow dog mom! Yes, we had to build this to keep our very mischievous puppy out of my garden haha! We just kind of winged it when we built it. I needed something that I could easily remove when I needed to get in there, so it’s 2 pieces…I tip each section open from the centre. It’s simple but very effective!

      Reply