January is for Planning (and Dreaming)
Ice and the challenge of living on a horse farm in NJ in January.
The cyclic nature of the garden lends itself to New Year’s dreaming. This week the world is full of everyone’s garden dreams–plants to grow, flowers to abandon, how-tos, and habits to leave behind. I used to be that gal, the one who came up with a whole list of resolutions and ways that I would become the best version of myself. Don’t get me wrong, I still think about ways I can be healthier or kinder, and I certainly set for myself some goals around the vitality of the farm business, but as far as inspiration for the new year, I now try to think about how I want to show up in and experience the world. What lens do I want to use when making choices about how I will spend my precious time?
Hyacinth and daffodils will be the first flowers I see in the spring.
This year I decided I want to experience the world with greater generosity, generosity of spirit, generosity of feeling, generosity of compassion.
A lot of this comes from the fact that the news this year has been hard for me. I watched up close, families who were shattered by the immigration crackdowns. I saw suffering as the promise of medical breakthroughs were crushed by the decimation of scientific research. I felt despair when children who didn’t have the privilege of being born in the US were denied life-saving treatments when USAID was dismantled. Over the course of the year my outrage began to feel like a blanket of rage that was smothering all of the other emotions I could and should be feeling. I’ve been trying to find a way to feel sorrow for what I am losing personally and what this country is losing collectively–humanity, compassion, kindness–but still find a way to show up without so much anger.
I settled on trying to be more generous. There will be days when I cannot muster this. I know this. Some days I have no more patience to try and understand, but I also know that at this moment I have a lot, good health, work, family, a beautiful piece of land. When I have so much, I want to find ways to be generous and not burrow into the comfort that surrounds me.
This is what greater generosity looks like for me:
Being generous financially.
I am being as generous as I possibly can with donations to the causes that support the things that I value like a healthy environment and the protection of civil rights. I’m also trying hard to use my purchasing dollars on businesses that are owned by real people who are making sustainable choices and contributing to my community.
Conjuring generosity for those who see the world differently.
There is so much that I do not know and that I have not experienced. I remind myself of this frequently when injustice seems so blatant. If I don’t remain open to other viewpoints, there is no way to bridge the vast gulf that exists between two sides who are so deeply invested in their beliefs. It isn’t like I don’t believe in right or wrong. I do, but I want to do a better job of trying to understand why my right and wrong might be so different from others, and not simply rest in moral outrage.
Nurturing generosity for myself.
I am not sure I know anyone who couldn’t benefit from this one. It’s so easy to judge ourselves more harshly than we judge others. This year I’m hoping to do a better job of granting myself the same benefit of the doubt that I’m able to conjure for others.
Amaryllis is the one cut flower I have in my home in the winter.
There isn’t a lot of garden content in this month’s update. Still, I think the season and the blank slate of a winter garden lends itself to reflection, so this is mine. For all my readers who really do come for the flower news, I will share which flowers I’m cutting from my 2026 rotation:
Asters too much disease
Bells of Ireland too much disease
Forget me Nots (probably) too much harvesting fuss
Thank you to each of you who is reading this for your generosity in 2025. I am inspired by it and appreciate every person who supported local flowers this past year.
I hope everyone’s 2026 is starting with grand plans and visions of the flowers that will be blooming in just a few short months.
