These Should Be Your Garden Resolutions in 2026
This year, resolve to reconnect—with your garden, your senses, and your wild self.
In the quiet months of winter, when much of the garden is resting, there’s an unexpected richness just below the surface. It’s a time for reflection, small shifts, and sensory immersion—the kind of recalibration that doesn’t require a to-do list or a total renovation. For Neive Tierney and Stephanie Lin, the duo behind Los Angeles- and Santa Barbara-based firm Nectar Landscape Design, this slower season offers exactly what many of us crave: a chance to reconnect with intention. Think of this season as a poetic lens to look at the landscape—and a compelling argument for skipping the performative pressure of New Year’s resolutions in favor of mindful presence. With a restorative design philosophy rooted in ecology, balance, and beauty, Tierney and Lin invite us to treat our gardens as places of return, not reinvention. In the spirit of a more grounded start to gardening season, we asked them to guide us through a handful of intentional shifts—gentle, achievable ways to cultivate calm and connection, from the ground up.
Less Can Truly Be More
Designing for Emotion, Not Just Aesthetics
Listening to the Land
Building Ritual and Resilience
Designing Around the Senses
The result? Gardens that grow with the seasons and keep inviting you back.
https://www.sunset.com/home-garden/garden-basics/new-years-resolutions-for-gardeners-2026
10 Of The Best Gardening Books For 2025
https://www.gardenersoasis.com/best-gardening-books/
2025 Garden Book Reviews: Our Top Picks
https://www.hortmag.com/2025-garden-book-reviews-our-top-picks
Gardening Books to Curl Up With This Winter
https://gardenseason.com/gardening-books-winter-reading/
Hey, I got a little bit of indoor gardening in the other day!
I gave my son’s girlfriend a dish to put succulents in as a Christmas gift. I had some plants that were getting unruly, and many of them had “babies”. So I set up a space on the dining room table for us to create a new planter for them. Brought in a fresh bag of succulent potting mix and a few trowels.
We loved getting our hands in the soil for a half hour. Her arrangement turned out really cute, and she sent a picture when she got home with some miniature clay critters that she had added. (She took a pottery class not long ago, so had some little animals she had made with some of her clay.)
The dish I gave her wasn’t handmade, but it did have a pretty light green and brown glaze on it.
Anyway, it sure felt good to stick my hands in the potting mix. I think she liked it too.
Wow check out what I just found. Being a long time canner I have gravitated to these reusable jars with red metal lids that are completely reusable. Some I have used 4 or 5 years in a row. They contain Polish pickled veggies and the label is Old World Market. I buy them at Menards. I like them because I don’t have to buy lids and the jars are not as big as a quart but bigger than a pint. Perfect for me. So I watched a youtube just now on making homemade sausage in a jar. The jar lids were gorgeous and I caught a name on the jar lid and look. The most beautiful jar lids ever, especially for gift giving. I am amazed. https://www.pannochka.pl/?srsltid=AfmBOoqCzmLkMKUJzLx4icMwZoHNxnIPC7EQjbUyDh93e4gC8jim2Uzc