Grow With Me Week: Nurturing Winter Saplings
Grow With Me Week: Nurturing Winter Saplings
This is the week it happens.
After the planning, the waiting, the quiet noticing, we arrive at the point where hands meet soil and intention becomes action. Not hurried, not loud. Just steady, deliberate, and rooted in the season we’re still standing in.
Winter saplings don’t ask for much. They don’t arrive demanding growth or proof. What they need now is care that’s calm and uncomplicated: space in the ground, soil firmed gently around their roots, and time to settle without interruption.
This is why planting in winter works so well.
Saplings planted now are still dormant. Their energy is held below the surface, focused on establishing roots rather than producing visible growth. It’s an invisible process, but a vital one. Everything that comes later depends on what happens here.
During Grow With Me week, planting is done with this understanding in mind.
There’s no rushing through the task. Holes are dug with care. Roots are placed thoughtfully. Soil is returned slowly, pressed in just enough to support without compacting. Watering is simple and sufficient, not excessive, and definitely not fussy.
This kind of planting feels different when you take the time to notice it.
Children often do. They notice the weight of the soil in their hands, the shape of the roots, the stillness of the sapling once it’s in place. They ask questions that don’t need immediate answers. They understand, instinctively, that this isn’t something to be finished in an afternoon.
Naming the tree — whether aloud or quietly — becomes part of the moment too. A small marker. A way of saying: this matters. Not because it will grow quickly, but because it will grow slowly, over time, alongside the lives unfolding around it.
Nurturing winter saplings isn’t about ongoing effort. Once planted, the work largely pauses. The tree rests. The ground holds it. Nature takes over.
And perhaps that’s the quiet reassurance this week offers.
Not everything needs tending constantly. Some things need to be planted well, and then left alone to do what they’re meant to do.
As Deep Winter draws to a close, this feels like a fitting way to mark the shift. Not by rushing ahead to what’s next, but by placing something carefully in the ground and trusting the season to carry it forward.
The work is done.
The roots are settling.
The rest will come in its own time.
There is limited late availability to take part in Grow With Me and plant your own tree during this final planting week. A small number of spaces remain and are dependent on availability over the next few days. Full details can be found here.