A Mother's Day Letter from the Garden
For the Women Who Tend Everything
Every May, I walk out to the garden before the rest of the world is up. Boots damp from the grass. Coffee mug in my hand. I look out across the beds we’ve been building for years on this 17-acre piece of Minnesota earth and think: this is the most honest thing about me.
Not my résumé. Not my sales numbers. Not the house.
The garden.
What you choose to grow—and how you tend it—tells a story about the life you’re actually living. Not the one you’re performing. The real one.
The Garden Doesn’t Lie
I’ve been doing this long enough—both in real estate and on our homestead—to know that how someone tends their outdoor space reflects how they’re tending themselves.
The woman whose garden is all structure and precision is usually craving control in a season that feels unruly. The one who plants wildly, without a plan, is ready to trust life again after a long stretch of playing it safe. The one whose beds have gone quiet—not from neglect, but from pouring everything into everyone else—she’s the one I want to pull up a chair for. She needs the garden most.
I think about this every spring. What am I planting, and why?
This year on our property, I’m planting with more intention than I usually do. Not just thinking about what looks beautiful—though beauty absolutely matters—but thinking about what I need to grow this season of my life. Roots that go deep. Things that come back on their own. Herbs that ask very little and give a lot.
Three Plants That Reveal a Woman’s Season of Life
I’ve started thinking of the garden as a kind of portrait. Here are three plants I watch for—and what they usually mean about the woman doing the planting.
Lavender. She’s in a season of wanting peace. She’s building something that won’t bloom immediately, and she knows it. Lavender growers are often women in transition—kids leaving home, marriages evolving, careers shifting. They are learning to tend something slow.
Tomatoes. She’s in full production mode. Output, abundance, generosity. She feeds people. She is almost certainly overwhelmed by her own harvest, in the garden and in life. Tomato women need to be reminded that not every crop has to be given away.
Peonies. She believes in beauty as its own justification. She’s someone who was told for a long time that things that don’t “produce” aren’t worth the space—and she’s done with that. Peonies bloom extravagantly for a short window and ask nothing of you the rest of the year. Peony women are finding their way back to themselves.
What are you planting this May?
A Mother’s Day Letter
If you’re a mother reading this—or if you love one—here’s something that might sound strange: the best gift is not flowers that were grown for you. It’s soil that’s yours to tend.
Giving a woman a plant this Mother’s Day instead of a bouquet says something different. A bouquet says I thought of you. A plant says I believe in your ability to make something grow.
And if you’re the gardener in your family—the one who’s been quietly tending everyone else’s roots—take a corner of this spring and plant something purely for yourself. Something that doesn’t produce anything useful. Something that just blooms.
You’ve earned extravagant.
Planting by Season of Life
I don’t garden by the calendar. I garden by the season I’m in. After 28 years of helping people make some of the biggest decisions of their lives—stay or go, renovate or start over, root deeper or spread wider—I’ve come to believe that we tend our homes the way we tend ourselves. Nowhere is that more true than in the garden.
This isn’t organized by zone or sun exposure. It’s organized by where you actually are right now.
If You’re in a Season of Rest and Recovery
The kids are grown. The pace has slowed. You’ve given everything for a long time and you’re not sure who you are when you’re not needed.
Plant: Lavender, Russian Sage, Echinacea, Black-Eyed Susan.
These are the forgiving perennials. They come back. They don’t require much. They are wildly beautiful with almost no intervention. This is the garden that says: you don’t have to earn your beauty anymore.
Keep beds loose and naturalistic. Resist the urge to over-control. Let things self-seed. This is a season for softness.
My take: This was my garden the first year we moved to Grant. I was so accustomed to producing that I didn’t know how to just tend. Lavender taught me to slow down.
If You’re in a Season of Building and Becoming
You’re in the thick of it—career, family, identity, possibly all three at once. You want beauty but you need it to be efficient. You want a garden that gives back.
Plant: Herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, chives), cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cut flowers (zinnias, cosmos).
This is the productive garden. It rewards your attention quickly and makes you feel like you’re winning. Because you are.
Raised beds are your best friend here—defined, contained, manageable. Put the herbs closest to the kitchen door. The shorter the distance between garden and table, the more often you’ll actually use what you grow.
My take: I still keep a version of this garden. Herbs I cook with, and a cutting bed because fresh flowers in the house are non-negotiable for me. Even in my busiest seasons, this garden keeps me grounded.
If You’re in a Season of Expansion and Joy
You’ve come through something. You’ve made hard choices and they were right. You feel lighter. You’re ready to take up more space.
Plant: Peonies, dahlias, climbing roses, heirloom tomatoes (wisteria if you’re brave).
This is the abundant garden. The one that makes people slow down when they walk past. The one that says I am not here to be small.
Go vertical. An arbor, a trellis, a climbing rose on a fence post. Let things reach. Design for drama as well as beauty.
My take: This is my garden right now. After years of building—the homestead, the brand, the book—I’m planting things that are purely, unapologetically beautiful. Peonies I’ll cut and put in every room. Dahlias I’ll photograph from July to frost. This is my season of extravagant.
The Seasonal Planting Rhythm I Use
This is the system I use on our property to stay connected to the seasons without letting the garden become another item on my to-do list.
May: Plant with intention. Choose one thing that’s purely beautiful and one thing that feeds you. That’s the whole rule.
June: Let it establish. Resist the urge to over-tend. Water, yes. Weed, yes. But mostly watch. The garden will tell you what it needs.
July–August: Harvest and edit. Cut flowers. Use the herbs. Give things away. Don’t hoard your harvest.
September: Plant for next year. Bulbs in the ground now are a gift to your future self. One of my favorite acts of optimism.
October–November: Let it rest. Leave the seed heads for the birds. Let the garden be a little wild before it goes quiet.
December–March: Plan on paper. Seed catalogs, garden journals, sketches. The garden lives in my imagination all winter and comes to life in May.
What I’m Growing This May
This year I planted lavender along the south-facing fence line of our main garden—something I’d been putting off for three years in favor of more “practical” things.
I also put in a cutting garden that’s just for me. Not for Instagram. Not for the house. For me. A row of dahlias, a row of zinnias, a few cosmos because they’re hard to be unhappy around.
And I’m expanding our herb spiral—a design element I love that’s both beautiful and functional. Fresh herbs are one of the simplest ways I know to bring the garden into daily life.
Mother’s Day Gift Ideas That Last
If you’re looking for a gift that outlasts the week—for your mother, your daughter, yourself:
A bare-root peony. Extravagant and perennial. She’ll think of you every June for the rest of her life.
A herb kit. Basil, thyme, rosemary in a good pot. Practical and deeply sensory.
A garden journal. Writing about what you grow deepens your relationship with it.
Seeds from your own garden. The most personal gift possible.
Time in the garden together. No gift wrapping required.
Our Mother’s Day Gift Guide can be found here.
Happy Mother’s Day. Go plant something extravagant.
Cari Ann Carter is the best-selling author of Are Your Roots Right? Rightsize Your Space. Reclaim Your Life. and a multi-faceted entrepreneur with a passion for intentional living, design, and home.
She leads the Cari Ann Carter Group, bringing over 28 years of experience in real estate, design, build, and renovation, and is the creative voice behind DIY Designer Homestead.
Through Fresh Roots Living, she shares practical ideas for cooking, gardening, entertaining, and creating a home that supports your next chapter.
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