Looking back on the best of Garden Therapy in 2018. Sharing the big and small changes as well as the news and highlights. Read on to see the most popular articles from the year.
Last January, my husband predicted this was going to be a year of big changes.
He was right. Sort of.
Big changes were REALIZED this year, but they came from many years of groundwork being laid. They came in with less of a bang and more of the sweet melody of a songbird that fills up the background and puts a smile on your face.
I kicked off the year with a brand new adventure, the Garden Therapy Seed Collection, a series of eight themed seed kits that are available exclusively through GardenTrends. I worked with GardenTrends to develop each kit to bring a DIY garden to life with specially selected seed varieties, supplies, growing instructions, and a few fun extras in each one. From the Indoor Herb kit that grows right on your window in Livi Pots to the Ornamental Edibles kit that comes with the innovative Roo harvesting apron, each collection included everything you needed to bring Garden Therapy home.
I had so much fun growing each of the eight themed gardens but I think my very favorite thing was connecting with other gardeners and seeing how their gardens grew.
- You can see each of the Garden Therapy Seed Kits in the shop.
- Tour the Garden Therapy Seed Collection Trial Gardens hosted by a collection of inspiring women who love plants as much as me!
- And if you are in the US, you can order the 2019 GardenTrends catalog and see what we have in store for 2019.
In case growing eight gardens wasn’t enough, I also wrote two new books this year. The first one came out in the summer and it’s all about making your own plant-based beauty products and packaging them up for gifts. Make & Give Home Apothecary was such a joy to write (um, dream job!) and I just love all the photos and emails I have been getting showing off the super-easy-to-make-yet-stunning projects from the book.
- Check out the Lavender Bath Melts that Kelly from My Soulful Home and her daughter Lara made.
- You’ll be in stitches when you see Erin’s reaction at the end of her video making Calendula Lotion Bars.
At the end of the year, I took my love of blabbing on about how easy AND worthwhile it is to make natural beauty products and focused it into an online course. The Botanical Beauty Holiday Gifts Workshop was created so we could craft up bath salts, tub teas, lotion bars and bath bombs together while having some laughs and making homemade gifts we can all feel really good about.
The Workshop has now closed for the year but I had such a great time working with the students and LOVED seeing the beautiful things they created. I know I will be launching another series again soon!
This year, above all else, has been marked by a feeling of gratitude. Throughout the years that I was disabled, I found that being thankful for what I had served me more than feeling down about what I had lost. I know that is not true for everyone, and we all deal with change, loss, and grief differently. No judgement here, just love. But for me, as I regained my health, I was bursting at the seems with love for all of the people who touched my life in small ways.
Throughout the year, I tried to find a way to make small, ongoing gestures of kindness in hopes that they might make a difference as well. You may have noticed this weaved throughout my blogs, social media, newsletters and the Sowing Kindness Project. Planting seeds of kindness by donating, volunteering, and encouraging is at the very top of my list of things to grow more of in 2019.
10 Best of Garden Therapy 2018
Along with all of those projects, I published 175 new posts on the blog this year! Wow. It’s always blows me away a bit when I count them. Even more exciting is to see what posts YOU liked the most. So here they are: the 10 Garden Therapy blog posts that YOU liked best this year.
10. Crafting with Air Plants and Wire
9. Preserving the Ornamental Garden: How to Dry Flowers, Leaves, Stems, and Pods for Crafting
8. The Sowing Kindness Project
7. Calendula Summer Lotion Bars Recipe
6. Say Goodbye to the Winter Blues with a DIY Window Herb Garden
5. Herbal Roll-on Remedies for Headache, Sleep, and Cold & Flu
4. Prevent and Get Rid of Annoying Fungus Gnats, Naturally
3. How to Grow Cucamelons AKA Mouse Melons or Mexican Sour Gherkins
2. How to Properly Water Air Plants
And the #1 most popular post was…
That’s a wrap!
Wow, looking back on the year I’m amazed by how much Garden Therapy has grown into a community. I’m grateful for the hundreds of emails, comments, and notes on social media I get and I try to respond to each one.
As you can imagine, I have plenty more brewing for 2019. If you have ideas, questions, or comments that you would like to share, please do leave them here for the community to see. I look forward to growing with you in 2019.
Take a Trip Back in Time…
Want to see my wrap up posts for previous years? Here you go!
