Most of us garden by blunt instruments of time.

Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter.

Even if we’re more nuanced, we might stretch that to twelve months, or to “early” and “late” versions of each season. But plants don’t actually live that way. Neither does weather. Neither do we, once we slow down enough to notice.

Gardening Beyond the Big Seasons

A few years ago, I learned that traditional Japanese calendars divide the year not into four seasons—or even twelve—but into 72 micro seasons, each lasting roughly five days. Each one is named not for a date, but for an observable shift in the natural world. Ice cracks. Plums swell. Frogs begin to sing. Wild geese depart.

It’s a calendar built on attention.

When I first encountered this idea, I downloaded the beautifully designed 72 Seasons app, which follows the traditional Japanese calendar. I loved it—but immediately felt its limitation. The micro seasons were precise, poetic, and meaningful… just not where I live.

What I wanted wasn’t a new system to follow.
I wanted a practice and a guide for a new way of seeing my own daily world.

Learning to Notice the In-Between

Gardening already trains us to pay attention, but often in broad strokes. We notice bloom times, frost dates, harvest windows. What we’re less practiced at noticing are the quieter transitions—the moments when something is clearly changing, but hasn’t yet declared itself.

The day the soil smells different after rain.
The week when buds are no longer tight, but not yet open.
The subtle shift in light that tells you, without checking a calendar, that something is turning.

These moments don’t announce themselves. They ask to be noticed.

That realization is what led me to start using the hashtag #pv72seasons on Instagram—not as a system, and not as a rule, but as a personal practice. A way of naming the micro seasons, whether I had language for them or not.

• When the first cherry blossoms arrive as the orchard is pruned hard, leaving flowering branches on the ground and a brief wash of ground level pink.
• Wild autumn weather settles in with rain, wind, racing clouds, and fall color at full saturation.
• Foraged camassia season shows up with gently arched pale blue stems of Camassia quamash, along the roadside.
• Dahlias, finally.
• Dessert grapes at full sweetness – harvested just steps from where they’ll be eaten.

None of these are official seasons. That’s the point.

Why This Matters for Gardeners

Designing and gardening both improve when we stop forcing nature into tidy categories and start responding to what’s actually happening.

When you begin to notice micro seasons, a few things shift. You become more patient. You intervene less aggressively. You make decisions based on conditions, not dates.

You also start to understand that change is constant—and that waiting for the “right season” is often just a way of not engaging with what’s already unfolding.

This kind of seasonal literacy doesn’t require an app, a hashtag, or a formal calendar. It just requires attention. The willingness to say, something is changing, even if you don’t yet know what it will become.

An Invitation, Not a System

I still use #pv72seasons, and I love seeing how others interpret their own micro seasons—wherever they are. Occasionally, I repost ones that catch my eye. But this was never meant to be a project to follow or a trend to keep up with.

It’s simply an invitation to notice.

To name the moments and let gardens teach us how time actually moves.

Because once you start living this way, the year doesn’t feel shorter or longer. It feels richer—layered with meaning, even in its quietest weeks.

And that, to me, feels like the real work of gardening.

–