Why Women Grow – Details, episodes & analysis

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 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. 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.  

Claire Ratinon is a food-grower, speaker and writer. In 2022, she released Unearthed, a powerful memoir about understanding what it is to become a custodian of the earth as a Black woman, and how the process of doing so helped her gain a sense of belonging in a post-colonial country. In 2012 Claire was working as a documentary producer in New York when she stumbled upon Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm in the middle of the city. Having always felt alienated from nature, she embarked upon a journey with growing food that changed her life. Since then, Claire has worked on organic growing sites in London and the English countryside, growing produce to sell to the city’s restaurants. Today we visit her garden in East Sussex, where she grows things including the food of her Mauritian heritage.

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is out on March 2nd and available to pre-order now.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. Thank you to our partners at Seedlip. 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 @noughticulture.

Poppy Okotcha describes herself as an ecological home grower working to inspire reconnection to the land and the living world through the story of food and herbs. She came to gardening after a shift in her personal life: having moved between the UK and South Africa during her childhood, Poppy had a career as a model. When she was left burnt out by the fashion industry, she began to cultivate a slower kind of life, growing organically on top of a canal boat in London and learning about biodynamic and regenerative growing. We were invited into her magical, Tardis-like garden in South Devon, where Poppy tends to a space that has been grown on for centuries, sharing her gentle stewardship of the land with her considerable social media platform. 

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is out on March 2nd and available to pre-order now.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. Thank you to our partners at Seedlip. 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 @noughticulture.

Introducing the line-up for the first season of Why Women Grow:

writer Claire Ratinon
designer Margaret Howell
chef Rukmini Iyer
gardening gamechanger Sarah Raven
novelist Salley Vickers
environmentalist Poppy Okotcha
and stylist and influencer Paula Sutton

We talk about everything, from motherhood, to gardening for a better planet and finding your place in the world. 

The first season kicks off on February 13, with episodes from the gardens and brains of Claire Ratinon and Sarah Raven. Make sure you subscribe to Why Women Grow, from wherever you usually download your podcasts, to be among the first to get it.

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is out on March 2nd and available to pre-order now.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. Thank you to our partners at Seedlip. 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 @noughticulture.

The first listen of the forthcoming Why Women Grow podcast, launching February 2023 from Alice Vincent.

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is out on March 2nd and available to pre-order now.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. Thank you to our partners at Seedlip. 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 @noughticulture.

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. 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.  

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.

Bonus episode: Writer and novelist Jamaica Kincaid redefined garden writing with books such as My Garden (Book) and Among Flowers, as well as changing perspectives on the post-colonial experience through titles such as A Small Place and Lucy. We meet the Antiguan-American author in the halls of Charleston House, Sussex, where Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant made art, a home, and a life-long relationship. In a quiet moment away from Charleston’s Festival of the Garden, Jamaica tells us about how gardening sits alongside her writing practice, how she converses with her plants and what they teach her about mortality. 

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. Thank you to Canongate and Uprooting, by Marchelle Farrell, for supporting this episode. We are grateful to our hosts at Charleston House and to Hollie Fernandes for her beautiful photographs of Jamaica Kincaid taken there. 

The creative mind behind Hill House Vintage and author of Hill House Living, Paula Sutton is a stylist, writer and - perhaps most of all - a purveyor of joy. After navigating a career in the fast-paced and glamorous world of fashion magazines, Paula relocated from the streets of South London to Hill House, an idyllic Georgian home in Norfolk 12 years ago. There, she decided that she was going to live - and raise her three young children - with a focus on what made her happy. Gardening is something that she has discovered later in life but has, she explains, become a crucial part of living in a more meaningful way.

This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is out on March 2nd and available to pre-order now.

The Why Women Grow podcast is produced by Holly Fisher, and theme music is by Maria Chiara Argiro. Thank you to our partners at Seedlip. 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 @noughticulture.