Why Women Grow

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Sarah Price on inheritance in the garden May 20, 2025

Show notes

Sarah Price is a landscape gardener who’s always seemed to exist on another plane. Her designs work with the environment to create something that feels both otherworldly and of the earth.

After undertaking a degree in Fine Art, Sarah went on to design gardens for the London Olympic Park, Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery and a Maggie’s Centre in Southampton.

But she’s also made some of the most remarkable - and memorable - gardens on the Chelsea Flower Show Main Avenue, winning two gold medals in the process.

We meet Sarah in her garden at home in Abergavenny, Wales, which once belonged to her grandparents. As we walk the paths, streams and tunnels that she had played in as a child, Sarah tells us some of the stories that her garden has carried, how this precious and magical space informs her practice, and what we often overlook when we make gardens.

Sarah Price can be found online, www.sarahpricelandscapes.com, and her instagram, @sarahpricelandscapes. She is supported by gardeners Keri Schofield, Jacky Mills and Ian Mannal; Rachel Seaton Lucas in her studio, and Crocus, who she has worked with since 2011.

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is available in all good bookshops. We’ve also been photographing our guests and their gardens and you can see the beautiful images captured by India Hobson on my website and instagram account @⁠⁠alicevincentwrites⁠⁠.

Use code WWGSUMMER at ⁠Crocus.co.uk⁠'s checkout to save 20% on full priced plants. The code is valid until 11.59pm on August 31st, 2025, It is valid when you spend a minimum of £50 on full priced plants and / or bulbs. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other codes or offers.

The Designers: new season trailer May 18, 2025

Show notes

It’s the biggest gardening show on earth - and this spring, the Why Women Grow podcast is finding out what it’s really like to be a female designer at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This is The Designers, our Spring miniseries, which has taken us from dappled shade of South London gardens to the foothills of Welsh mountains and straight to Main Avenue. We’re troubling gardening’s toughest glass ceiling - and learning about grief, joy, survival and creation on the way. Join me, Alice Vincent, for all-new episodes of the Why Women Grow podcast, launching on the 20th May.

Hannah Read on making music through the landscape Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

How to capture the sound of something humans can’t hear? How to make a song about a mushroom? That was the challenge put to Scottish musician, Hannah Read, in the wake of her father’s death. Hannah, who lives in California, fell into an earthy world of mycelium in 2020, and her album, The Fungi Sessions, captures a growing fascination with fungi in through beautiful folk music.

We were fortunate enough to catch Hannah while she was in her Edinburgh hometown before she went on a UK Tour. At the city’s Botanic Gardens, she told us about falling in love with music on the Isle of Eigg, her relationship with the landscape and what she’s learned from the earth - as well as treating us to an al fresco performance.

To find our more information, tour dates and join Hannah's mailing list, head to Hannahread.com. Sign up to her Bandcamp to listen to and buy her music. All of Hannah’s music is streamable on all platforms. She's on Instagram @hanread and Facebook: /hannahreadmusic.

Use code WWGSPRING at ⁠Crocus.co.uk⁠'s checkout to save 20% on full priced plants. The code is valid until 11.59pm on May 30th, 2025, It is valid when you spend a minimum of £50 on full priced plants and / or bulbs. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other codes or offers.

Manon Awst on being peat compatible Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

Today we are on an adventure - to the sticky, secret depths of Wales’s peatlands. This intriguing landscape could be the answer to the climate crisis, but it also hold so many stories in its mysterious history. One artist who is trying to unravel them is Manon Awst, whose art, performance and poetry explores how peat bogs can teach us how to live in ways that are more connected with the earth we depend on.

Manon is a Welsh artist who explores how we connect to more-than-human environments - what we notice, what we miss, and how our coexistence might flourish. When we visit her, on a freezing early January day at Crymlyn Bog, outside of Swansea, she opens our eyes to the power and potential of these incredible landscapes - before breaking through the ice to go beneath their surface.

Manon's Future Wales Fellowship and creative work on peatlands is supported by Arts Council Wales and Natural Resources Wales. To learn more about the Fellowship and her peaty practice check out www.manonawst.com or @manon_awst on Instagram.

The Land Gardeners on the power of soil Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

As Henrietta Courtauld and Bridget Elworthy explain in our first Earthly Matters episode, people come for the flowers but they stay for the soil. Since forming their company, The Land Gardeners, in 2011, they have combined their cut flower-growing and landscape design businesses with a mission that fuels them on a daily basis: researching the earth beneath our feet to better understand how to repair the soil that feeds nearly everything we build our existence upon.

Their work has seen them transform unloved gardens and agricultural plots into hives of thriving, promising productivity - and Henrietta and Bridget are always looking towards the techniques that the less courageous will take years to deploy. This year, their insight is being shared in a major exhibition at Somerset House, called Soil: The World at Our Feet.

Amid drifts of snowdrops in the garden of Henrietta’s Cornish home, we spoke about how The Land Gardeners’ persistent commitment to soil health has taken them all over the world, learning, speaking and spreading the secrets of soil.

Use code WWGSPRING at Crocus.co.uk's checkout to save 20% on full priced plants. The code is valid until 11.59pm on May 30th, 2025, It is valid when you spend a minimum of £50 on full priced plants and / or bulbs. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other codes or offers.

Earthly Matters: new season trailer Feb 18, 2025

Show notes

Introducing Earthly Matters

A new season of Why Women Grow is coming soon - and this time, we’re getting dirty.

After two years of celebrating the bold and the beautiful, we’re back - and we’re going under the surface to explore what lies beneath.

In Earthly Matters, the first of four brand new miniseries for this year, we’ll be exploring the powerful possibilities of soil, peatlands and fungi with some incredible women. And we can’t wait for you to dive in with us.

Join me, Alice Vincent, for all-new episodes of the Why Women Grow podcast, launching on the 25th February.

Hazel Gardiner on gardening to heal Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Floral designer and broadcaster Hazel Gardiner has been part of the Why Women Grow sisterhood long before we hit record: she was the first woman I interviewed for the book. I’d been aware of Hazel’s distinctive approach to floristry and her advocacy for diversity and inclusivity in horticulture for some time. But when I learned of how gardening had helped her when she was undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer, I realised how deep and unique her relationship to the earth was.

We celebrated the Why Women Grow exhibition at the Garden Museum earlier this year by recording our first ever live episode with Hazel. Do check her out on Instagram, @hazelgardinerdesign. We’re so grateful to the Garden Museum for hosting the episode and the Why Women Grow exhibition.
This podcast is inspired by my book,⁠⁠ Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival⁠⁠, which is available from all good book shops.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. We’ve also been photographing our guests and their gardens and you can see the beautiful images captured by Siobhan Watts on my instagram account @⁠⁠alicevincentwrites⁠⁠.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro.

Robin Wall Kimmerer on gardening as love Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She’s a rare example of someone who straddles the world of academic science and indigenous teaching; by crossing the gulf between the two, she’s transformed how people understand the outside world. Her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, is a remarkable example of wisdom that thrives on being passed on: it took seven years to land in the New York Times' bestseller list, then stayed there for months.

Robin lives in Upstate New York, but when she was in the UK earlier this summer I had the privilege of spending some time with her. Taking her to one of the oldest medicinal gardens in the world, the Chelsea Physic Garden, to record this conversation, was one of the highlights of my career.

This podcast is inspired by my book,⁠ Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival⁠, which is available from all good book shops.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro.

Anna Jones on taste in the garden Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Chef and bestselling author Anna Jones has inspired the way hundreds of thousands of people cook for years - and we were delighted to be invited into her courtyard garden in East London for this episode of Why Women Grow.

Anna won’t profess to being a great gardener but her approach to food extends far beyond the kitchen. She works with edible flowers, seasonal produce and has written whole books about cooking in a more environmentally conscious way. Anna spoke about how she navigates the world through her senses, what her garden has held and how she has learned to grow there.

A big thank you to Anna Jones. Anna’s delectable new book, Easy Wins, is out now. We're grateful to our partners at Crocus for making this episode happen. Use code WWG20 to get 20% off plants and products on their website until October 31.

This podcast is inspired by my book,⁠ Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival⁠, which is available from all good book shops.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro.

Why Women Grow: mini series trailer Jul 18, 2024

Show notes

Why Women Grow is back with a new mini series, featuring three women who have fundamentally changed how I think and live. This summer's mini series features the chef and bestselling author Anna Jones, botanist and Braiding Sweetgrass writer Robin Wall Kimmerer and floral designer Hazel Gardiner.

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