Welcome to My Postpartum Garden

A living story of herbs, healing, and home :)

When we moved into our home in 2022, I didn’t just see a yard waiting to be filled. I saw the beginning of something much deeper. I saw a space that could one day hold healing, nourishment, slowness, and postpartum care in a very intentional way. At the time, I didn’t have a full plan. I just had a feeling. A quiet knowing that I wanted to grow a garden that would support not only beauty, but restoration. This is the story of how that garden began… and how it continues to grow, season by season 🌿✨

🌱 2023: The Beginning of the Garden

In 2023, I started planting the very first layer of what would eventually become my postpartum garden. Everything felt new and experimental. I was learning the land (sooo much clay!), the light, the soil, and how each plant responded to its environment. But more than that, I was choosing herbs with intention… plants that are traditionally known for their supportive, restorative, and nourishing qualities for our specific garden zone 10 in california.

Some of the first herbs I planted were:

🌿 Lavender for calm and nervous system support

🌿 Comfrey for its long history in traditional herbal gardens

🌿 Yarrow for resilience and grounding

🌿 Johnny-Jump-Ups for gentle beauty and abundance

🌿 Calendula for warmth, skin support, and vibrancy

Each plant felt like a small promise to my future self. I didn’t know exactly how I would use everything yet, but I knew I was building something that would one day feel deeply supportive during postpartum recovery. This was the year the garden dream quietly took root.

🌿 2023: Creating a Nursery Bed

In 2023, the garden began to feel more structured and alive. I built a small raised garden bed that became my nursery space, and this changed everything for me. It became a place of experimentation, care, and observation.

This is where I would:

🌱 Start seeds from scratch and watch them emerge slowly

🌱 Nurture delicate seedlings as they strengthened

🌱 Move plants into larger spaces once they were ready

There was something deeply grounding about this process. It reminded me that growth doesn’t need to be rushed. It just needs consistency, care, and time. Around this same time, I also began thinking more intentionally about pollinators. I added milkweed to support butterflies, and I started noticing how much life increased when the garden was designed with them in mind.

Bees, butterflies, and insects became part of the rhythm of the space 🦋🐝 The garden stopped being just mine. It became something shared.

🌼 2024: Expansion, Bloom, and Harvest

By 2024, everything had grown in ways I couldn’t have fully planned. The garden felt fuller, wilder, and more alive. Plants were thriving, overlapping, and asking for more space. That summer, I began carefully transplanting many of them into their permanent homes so they could continue growing without restriction.

Lavender, Johnny-Jump-Ups, and many other herbs found new spaces throughout the yard, and it felt like the garden was finally starting to organize itself.

In autumn, I turned inward and focused on harvesting and drying. This became one of my favorite parts of the year. There is something deeply calming about gathering plants at their peak and preserving them for later use.

I spent that season drying:

🌿 Herbal bundles

🌸 Florals for tea and display

🌱 Plantain leaf for storage and future use

Winter brought yarrow into focus again. Even in colder months, it felt steady and bright in its own way. I harvested and dried it as well, grateful for how it carries strength and softness at the same time. This year taught me that a garden is not just what grows outside. It is also what you preserve, what you learn, and what you carry forward.

🌸 Spring 2025: Local Roots & New Growth

Spring marked a shift toward deeper connection with local growers and seasonal sourcing. I began spending more time at farmers markets, slowly gathering herbs, seedlings, and inspiration from other growers in my area. It changed the way I saw my own garden. It wasn’t separate from the community around me. It was part of it.

I started blending:

🌿 Homegrown herbs

🌸 Market-sourced botanicals

🌱 New plant additions from local nurseries

This was also when I expanded the structure of the garden. I added a trellis and built two raised beds:

🌿 One dedicated to medicinal herbs and kitchen plants

🦋 One dedicated to pollinators and flowering support

Around the same time, I did a small front door plant makeover that brought so much life and joy to the entrance of our home. Even though those plants were eventually moved into the garden beds, they helped set the tone for what the space was becoming. One of the most meaningful moments of this season was planting sweet pea seeds from my childhood farm.

Watching them grow felt like reconnecting with a memory I didn’t realize I had been carrying. When they bloomed, I used them to create my first bouquets for my mom and for clients, which felt incredibly full circle 💐

🌿 Spring 2026: Full Circle Blooming

Now in spring, the garden feels like it is fully waking up at once. There is color everywhere. Movement everywhere. Life everywhere. I’ve been gathering herbs and seeds from local farmers markets and trusted sources like Mountain Rose Herbs, including:

🌿 Thyme

🌿 Basil

🌿 Lavender

🌿 Rosemary

🌿 Mint

🌼 Chamomile

And the garden itself is now blooming in layers:

🌸 Calendula opening into bright golden color

🌼 Cosmos stretching upward with soft movement

🌿 Yarrow blooming steadily throughout the beds

🌱 Sweet peas climbing and unfolding in soft waves

🌿 Lavender filling the air with fragrance and calm

It feels like everything I’ve planted over the years is now speaking at once. Most weekends are now spent between nurseries, farmers markets, and the garden itself. I’m always observing, planting, moving things gently, and making space for what wants to grow next. In April 2026, I also added a second trellis for my Cecile Brunner climbing roses 🌹 One is a soft pink, and the other is still a mystery. I love not knowing yet. There is something beautiful about letting plants surprise you over time. And recently, a few birds moved into our birdhouses 🐦 which felt like one of the sweetest confirmations that this space is becoming a true ecosystem.

🌿 Herbs I Love for a Postpartum Garden

If you are dreaming of creating your own postpartum healing garden, here are some of my favorite herbs to begin with:

🌸 Calendula – supportive for skin, warmth, and gentle healing

🌿 Lavender – calming, grounding, and supportive for rest

🌿 Yarrow – traditionally used for resilience and balance

🌿 Chamomile – soft, soothing, and nervous system support

🌱 Plantain leaf – grounding and supportive in herbal preparations

🌿 Lemon balm – uplifting and calming for emotional support

🌸 Rose – heart-opening and deeply nourishing

These plants are beautiful in tea blends, dried bundles, salves, and simply growing in the garden where you can see and tend them daily.

Raised beds completely changed how I approach gardening. They allow for more intention, better soil control, and easier tending through every season. They also make it easier to create “plant communities” where herbs and flowers support each other as they grow.

This garden has become so much more than a collection of plants.
It has become a timeline of seasons, healing, creativity, and quiet transformation. A place where I’ve learned to slow down, observe more closely, and trust the natural rhythm of growth. And what I love most is that it is still becoming. Every year adds something new. Every season brings something unexpected. And every bloom feels like a reminder that healing, like gardening, doesn’t happen all at once. It happens slowly, over time, with care 🌿✨

I’ll continue sharing more as it grows. I can’t wait to see what summer 2026 brings!

Wishing you all the healing!