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© 2026 Tending to Endings.
July 2026 marks the launch of our First Edition of the Tending to Endings Cards, which you can access digitally here, with new Facilitation Guidelines, for a contribution of your choosing. You can use the cards on-screen or print them yourself. The physical prototype packs we released in June 2025 are no longer available.
We operate on a contribution model — you’re free to give whatever amount feels right. As a rough guide: if money is tight, simply give what feels possible for you, even if that’s nothing. If you're a coach, facilitator, or consultant using the cards professionally, we'd suggest £35 or more. If you’re working with or as part of organisations, we’d suggest £55 or more. Our time developing this project is unfunded, so whatever you give helps sustain the work.
Not at the moment — this First Edition is a digital card deck delivered as a zip file, and it comes with printing suggestions so you can make your own physical set at home or at a local print shop. We went digital because so much of our community is spread worldwide, with postage and customs making the prototype packs hard to get to people affordably. Shipping at that scale also came with significant logistical and carbon costs that we weren't set up to carry well.
We'd love to offer physical packs again one day. If we do, we'll announce it through the newsletter. For now, the digital deck is designed to be printable wherever you are.
You can use them on screen — computer, tablet, or phone — or print them. There's no single right way. Some people pull a card each morning; others use them in coaching, retrospectives, workshops, or a conversation with a friend. The Facilitation Guidelines include suggestions for using the cards on your own, one-to-one, or in groups. You're also welcome to adapt them and make your own versions, within the usage terms described under Sharing & Licensing below.
Yes. You don't need any gardening knowledge. Most people connect with ideas like composting, pruning or weeding without knowing the horticultural detail, and the cards are designed to speak for themselves. We've seen them used well in boardrooms, therapy rooms, community halls, and living rooms — by people with no gardening experience. If you’d like to learn more about the gardening practices included, the Facilitation Guidelines contain a ‘Go Deeper’ section for each card.
Your Prototype Pack still holds up as an artefact, remaining useful and usable as a resource on its own. You don’t necessarily need the new edition; you’re welcome simply to continue using the prototype cards.
Nevertheless, we do encourage you to pick up our Facilitation Guidelines. This is a new resource, and offers much richer support — including safety guidance, session formats, and deeper context for each metaphor. It comes bundled with the new First Edition Deck.
In practice, we therefore recommend getting the First Edition (for a contribution of your choosing) so that you’ll have access to the Facilitation Guidelines. You can then choose whether to adopt the new cards, or continue using your prototypes.
The main changes:
The new Facilitation Guidelines
A new card, Letting Go to Seed — for endings that move beyond our control, where the most generative thing we can do is step back and let things scatter. It felt important as a way to allow for endings we don't choose or control.
Pesticide repositioned as a shadow card — still in the deck, but framed more clearly as a mirror for harmful or avoidant ways of handling endings.
Refined language and imagery across the cards, based on community feedback.
The Guidelines are the companion to the card deck. They include deeper context for each card (gardening practice, cultural history, metaphor), safety guidance for holding endings work well, ready-to-use session formats for groups and one-to-one, garden-based exercises, indigenous and cultural parallels, and prompts and reflections for each card. They're designed for anyone using the cards — experienced facilitators and newcomers alike.
Letting Go to Seed isn't available separately — it's part of the First Edition, which give it its full context.
The Facilitation Guidelines are a comprehensive companion to the deck. They include deeper context for each card (gardening practice, cultural history, metaphor), safety guidance for holding endings work well, ready-to-use session formats for groups and one-to-one, garden-based exercises, indigenous and cultural parallels, and prompts and reflections for each card. They're designed for anyone using the cards — experienced facilitators and newcomers alike.
No. The cards are for anyone to use — for personal reflection, a conversation with a friend, or professional practice. The Facilitation Guidelines are designed to help people wanting to work more intentionally with the cards — whether personally or professionally. In particular, the safety guidelines are an important reference if you intend to use the cards in a group setting around grief, loss, or organisational change. Endings work can touch deep feelings, and holding that well matters.
Yes to all of the above, with certain conditions.
The cards are shared under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), which means you can use, share, adapt and translate them — including as part of paid coaching, therapy, facilitation, or consultancy — as long as you explicitly credit Tending to Endings, and share any adaptations you make on the same terms, i.e. freely and openly.
We chose to license in this way because grief touches everyone, and we believe these ideas should be available to anyone who needs them.
The one boundary is the brand. Our name, logo and visual design are ours, so your work should credit us but not be presented as an official Tending to Endings product or offering. Nor can you adapt and then sell the cards as your own product.You can find the full terms of the license in the Facilitation Guidelines.
A simple line is enough — for example: "Using the Tending to Endings card deck. Original work at tendingtoendings.com." If you've adapted the content, note that too.
You can absolutely use the cards in your own workshops. We'd just ask that you present them as a tool you're using — for example, "I'll be using the Tending to Endings card deck in this session" — rather than branding the event itself as a Tending to Endings workshop. The brand name is ours; the cards are yours to work with.
Subscribe to our newsletter at tendingtoendings.com — we share reflections, new ways to use the cards, and stories from the community. You can reply to any newsletter; we read everything, though it may take time for us to respond.
The most valuable thing you can do is use the cards and tell people about them. Word of mouth is how almost all of our community found us, so writing about the cards, sharing them, or recommending them to a colleague helps enormously. And if you have feedback — what worked, what didn't, what's missing — we always want to hear it.
We run sessions ourselves from time to time. If you'd like us to facilitate for your team, community, or event, get in touch at [email protected] and we'll see what's possible.
Who knows! For now, we each have different commitments and priorities to tend to. We're here, we'll stay present to our community, and we'll keep bringing curiosity to what grows. We'd love to hear from you.
Sign up for updates, inspiration, community events and more.
You can also contact us at [email protected]