Phil:
So we're delighted to welcome onto the show Dr Ana Atlee, who is one of the co-founders of Seedball. Welcome, Ana.

Kate:
Welcome.

Ana:
Thanks for having me on.

Kate:
No thank you. So, I'm just going to go straight into it. So, for anyone who hasn't come across Seedball before, can you explain to us all what it is?

Ana:
So really simple, a simpler way really to grow wildflowers from seed. It's wildflower seeds mixed with compost, clay and chilli pepper powder in a tiny ball about one centimetre. And you simply throw them into your garden and let flowers grow from them.

Phil:
Fantastic. And it's peat free compost?

Ana:
Absolutely. Peat free compost is the only way to go.

Kate:
Just very quickly there. You mentioned chilli powder. Now, obviously, that's not to make it taste better for us. Is there a reason you use chilli powder?

Ana:
Yeah. So the chilli powder is a top tip for anybody actually, who's out there that's struggling with ants and slugs and snails and things like that. Chilli is a really, really great deterrent for you to put over… Well, it protects the seeds from being taken, but it also it does help them a little bit when they start to sprout.

Wildflowers are just notoriously slow growing and they are, once they're in that very slow growth stage, they're really vulnerable. So most of the growing has to be kind of protected when they're at that stage, so that they can get to the next bit when they're really hardy. They're really great in a drought. They're really great in all conditions.
Don't need that much watering, don't need that much attention. But it's that first little stage. So the chilli powder actually gets rid of them. And that came from some research actually, because I was a researcher before. Yeah, there was a couple of people in my department in Aberdeen University at the same time presenting research on chilli powder. So there was one person that was trying to deter elephants from coming and taking crops – literally. And I was like, this is cool. And then there was somebody else that was using chilli powder also as a kind of protection of crops - so seed. And that was stopping ants and insects and stuff like that. And I was like, this could be the perfect addition to Seedballs, because we'd started doing that from a permaculture research
I did. And we had at the beginning lots and lots of pots of them growing, so we added it in to see if that would help us protect them. Yeah.

Kate:
Wonderful, because I've heard it used with squirrels against squirrels when I used to work for parks, and we used to plant thousands of crocus bulbs, and the squirrels just follow us behind, digging them all up. So I know it's... But I didn't know about slugs and other insects, so I'm going to try that against… because I'm having real issues with slugs at the moment. So yeah, I'm going to give that a go.

Ana:
It's like a slug apocalypse. When they come, they come on mass.

Kate:
Slugmageddon.

Ana:
Yes, Slugmageddon! I feel like, oh it's if you really do have a problem, then you will also need to sprinkle a bit more chilli on top of the seedballs because there are so many. But if it's just you have standard slug problems, it really does keep them away and give them a head start. But squirrels in themselves can also be interesting because they sometimes take them and then sort of spit them out when they realise it's it's not, it's not anything that they nut. And it also tastes a bit rotten. So yeah, they're kind of our distribution system unofficial.

Kate:
Okay.

Phil:
So you mentioned about wildflowers and the seedballs are there to grow wildflowers. What sort of varieties are you actually growing for through Seedballs?

Ana:
So yeah, lots and lots. Now lots and lots is the answer. And we started out with just perennials. Very, very much from a conservation background we are. So we started out with perennials for bees, butterflies and what was our last I think we had Urban Meadow so we had three in our first mixes. And over time we realised that some people wanted to focus on poppies and oxide daisy and cornflowers. And so they came in.

Kate:
The classics.

Ana:
Yeah. And then we worked with the Natural History Museum and developed mixes with them for that to attract moths and for birds. So there was seed for them to feed on and... What else do we do with them? Also, beetles. So other pollinators that are less well known. And over time, we've just continued to expand so that we've pretty much any single species that you'd want. There's a wildflower we do, and lots and lots of different mixes now.

Phil:
Okay. And what size pack do the seed balls coming in?

Ana:
They started off always in a little tin and we had… And there was about 100 seeds per ball. And now we've whittled it down a lot more. So I think there's about 20 to 50 per ball and about 20. And then we've now got grab bags which are big ones, can have 100 seed balls in 500 seed balls in.
And we have smaller kind of packets where we have like 15 in them and tubes and yeah, lots of different sizes. I don't know if you can see actually. So that's the original size.

Phil:
Right. Okay. And so what sort of area would something like that… Would you do them all at the same time, or would you just put a couple in?

Ana:
Well it depends on the area that you want to cover. So we started off very much… The concept of Seedball was trying to get everybody to be able to grow wildflowers no matter where they lived. And so each seedball you need about a ten centimetres diameter really. So you're going to put ten centimetres kind of between them, evenly spaced. And they will spread out and create kind of cottage garden type effect from, from that. So really the answer is if you've got one pot you probably just need three and expand it out from there. We've got hanging baskets with them in. I used to do with the kids tin can planters, and that was just one little one in. And then with tumbling bird’s-foot trefoil coming down, and they would hang that on the fence. Yeah. So it really does start from a small as you you can make a little bee pit stop cafe. If you've got a big meadow then you can use a big grab bag and have 500 and spread that out. We can do bulk ones as well. We do even bigger sometimes, but more for gardens, Yeah.

Kate:
Wonderful. I remember when guerrilla gardening started and people would, yeah, use the seed balls and seed bombs. They used to call them, didn't they. And tell them derelict kind of areas. And yeah, it was such a great concept. Anyway Phil shall we carry on?

Phil:
Yeah. So Anna, you mentioned that you have a research background and I know that you and Emily, your co-founder from Seedball, met while you were at university. It was that up in Aberdeen, is that right?

Ana:
We did. It's a nice story actually for Seedball. So in Aberdeen University, it’s a national scheme. There's the National Environment Research Council have a scheme where they encourage people who have got PhDs there. Early career researchers. So you've just got your PhD. You're nearly at the end of that. Or you're doing your postdoctoral research. And they gather you together and they try and you do like a terrifying amount of business training in a weekend.
It was an MBA in a weekend.

Phil:
Oh, wow.

Ana:
No, not that much. But it was it felt like it. I mean, we were there from very early in the morning. I think we were finishing each day about one in the morning as well. It was it was insane.

Phil:
That's intense.

Ana:
Yeah. And then like Dragon's Den competition at the end. Right.

Kate:
Right.

Ana:
We found in that, you know what? Business could change the world. Business really could make the biggest difference in the world if it's done right. I don't have to ask for any funding from anybody. I'll never have to apply for a grant anymore. I'm not going to be writing papers that no one's going to read. I can write blog posts that people can read. Like I could actually have a difference, like make a difference in the world. And so we went out of this, and went why don't we do this? Let's just do this. like it's - how hard can it be? Famous last words!

Yeah. And we went in and had this idea because I was doing permaculture… On the side from my research, I did a permaculture course. Which I absolutely loved, and I was doing research with professor Mark Reed that we were talking about earlier on peat free. So he was with the IUCN on peatlands, and we were also looking at nature reserves, and we were trying to work with government to advise them to create more spaces for nature.
And no one's listening to us. So no one was listening to my kind of research I was writing on. So yeah, this was where that idea kind of came from. This is where we met. And then we had these huge strengths together that didn't really overlap. So Em's never wanted to go over to my side doing stuff, and I've never really wanted to go over to hers.
And we've just agreed, you know, that's been amazing. Yeah.

Kate:
Great partnership. So one of the kind of clever things about Seedballs is that it makes kind of big environmental issues, which we know can feel a bit overwhelming, but you make them feel manageable. Was that part of the intention or did that kind of just develop organically?

Ana:
It was the intention. I'm so glad you see that. That was the that was it from the start. You know, that some things when we when everything feels so large in the environment and we feel so insignificant, this is actually something that you can truly, truly save a lot of the ecosystem by something as simple as planting wildflowers and planting for bees.
Because of the way that the ecosystem works, and because of how simple that is, that we wanted to create something that meant that everyone could feel they could make a difference and not just feel they can make a difference. They actually will make a difference. We get sent photos all the time. Here's my Seedball patch, and here's a bee on it.

I've just been sent some from Pollinator Pathways in Wandsworth, and they were like, oh, we threw down some corn flowers and here's two goldfinches feeding on it.

Kate:
Oh wow, how lovely.

Ana:
Gives me goosebumps, because it's as simple as that. Put down the flowers. It was a bee desert out there when we started this. Garden centres were not like they are today. It felt like it was just all, I used to think of them as plastic flowers, you know, nothing for the bees, nothing for the pollinators. It was beautiful.

But I remember trying to look myself, like, well, I want my garden with butterflies and bees and I'm a really bad gardener, so I'm totally the opposite of Kate. I am a terrible gardener. I really tried and I was like, I need something for me that's easy to grow, needs no skill and no time, and will bring wildlife back.

And I couldn't find it. So that's part of why we created it. And instantly, they came back. They come back. I've just moved house and we bought an ex-HMO that was concreted over. There are pictures actually on our Instagram of it, but, like, the front and the back was concreted. And the first thing to do, obviously, was front garden, back garden. Front garden is fully Seedballed and it's just covered in bees and butterflies, and that's only from being done, I think, in February.

Kate:
Wow.

Ana:
Yeah.

Kate:
It's amazing. Build it and they will come, isn't it?

Ana:
Build it and they will come. And then you know what else is amazing about it? Because I was an ecological scientist, my research was on pro-environmental behaviour. So how do you encourage other people to care? And it's a lot about them seeing other people doing it and feeling part of that kind of community. So the decision to do the front garden is my neighbours get to see it, I get to know all my neighbours and then they will say, oh, you know, I quite like to have some flowers in my garden. And, you know, the guy who's walking his dog and it's a knock-on effect that can be huge. So yeah.

Phil:
So can we just touch on what the actual issues are that Seedball is trying to address? I mean, you mentioned that, you know, we're losing habitats or, you know, we're more of a desert for wildflowers. So can you just explain that? Because you've obviously done a lot of research and you understand this subject really well. So it'd be really good to understand what it is that Seedball is trying to alleviate or, you know, to return.

Ana:
Yeah. I mean, it's as simple as saving the bees. So if you just want it all distilled, it's that. We have lost 97… Well, there's two stats here I can give you. The latest is actually 99% of all of our wildflower meadows. But the most commonly cited is 97%. So we're somewhere between that of how much. It's huge. I mean, and I think a few of us have seen that figure out there and it almost seems too big. You know, it's huge. So we have lost that much of wildflower meadows. We've also lost a lot, nearly all of our front gardens in London and lots of other places around. It's been paved over.

We're losing all of this space, and that in itself causes an instant knock-on effect of losing bees. And lots of us have heard about the loss of bees. And then the impact on our smallest, most important creatures. So this idea was coupled with me coming across some research about, I told you I was looking at the National Parks research. I also came across a stat that the gardens at the time, our gardens cover an area that's larger than all of our national nature reserves combined.

So I was like, well, if that is the case, what would happen if people just grew a little bit for wildlife, if they just popped in one small patch for bees? And what would happen is you would save bees and not only would you save bees, you would bring in the other pollinators like the moths, which would then bring in the bats, which would then bring in the birds that then feed on them, which you've then got a whole system restored in the simplest way. So yeah, at its basic, save bees, save the world.

Kate:
It's so simple.

Ana:
Yes, we can all do it. Also, even if you have a balcony, you don't even need a garden. Yeah, yeah.

Kate:
I've done that. I've planted wildflower seeds in a big container, plastic tub trug, and yeah, they're growing so well. And I'm the only balcony on my street with any plants on it, and I'm hoping it will have that knock-on effect that other people will see it. And it looks pretty and it's full of life. So I'm hoping that my neighbours will copy.

Ana:
I'm so sure. People will see that. We started out with a balcony and just balcony, little pots that hang on the railings. So, you know, it's been tested in those incredibly shallow, very cheap pots that you can get that hang on the railings and the drainpipe pots. That was the whole thing, every single product has been tested in this smallest of space up to it.

And that idea that other people will see that, I think it really does happen because it brings happiness. It brings colour back.

Kate:
Oh my goodness, it's colour, isn't it? And colours make people happy, you know, it really does. Yeah, definitely. So I'm just going to just quickly talk about native wildflowers. Is that what you are talking about, rather than other kind of bee-friendly plants that people plant in their garden that aren't particularly native?

Ana:
So in answer, are we talking about native wildflowers? We are talking about native wildflowers. We started with native wildflowers, and we started out very firmly in the camp of perennials, which are the slowest, but the most impact kind of ones to grow. The reason that happened is simply because it was the easiest at that point for bees.
You know, without actually seeing, right, so we're going to research all this: wildflowers are going to help bees, our native plants will help native species, and it's a no-brainer. So it just started out there because we were the first.

So we were the first Seedball product in the UK. It so happens that people have followed in our footsteps, and that's great because it's disrupted the industry and it's really exciting. Right. So I'm excited by it. You know, it's huge. And we led the way and I'm like, yeah. And it so happens that they've all just decided to be native. And why, I ask them? We chose that because we were the first. We chose that because we wanted the biggest difference, which was the easiest no-brainer that's going to help bees.

We are going to expand into more bee-friendly plants, into more pollinator-friendly plants. It's not that we were against them because we're a garden product. You know, sometimes people are like… we're not…. We didn't ever go the guerrilla gardening way because we really wanted conservation people to be on our side. And they have always, at the start, they were very cautious of us and they were like, oh, don't put anything non-native here. Or then these might be native to Cumbria, but not to here.

And I mean, there's a bit of nitpicking going on in conservation given the world is actually in a disaster. That's a separate issue there, like, okay, mate, you know, I get that. But we are a gardening product and the whole purpose is to garden, to help the ecosystem and help wildlife and help people grow more easily.

And in itself, native wildflowers are hard to grow, and some of the plants that have been cultivated by garden centres, their seeds are grown like they're made to grow really quickly. They're made to do this. And we have a disadvantage because ours are just native and they're not made to perform on command and germinate when you want. They just are native plants. So yeah, in many ways other bee-friendly ones might be easier, quicker.

Phil:
Can I just ask you a quick question about the manufacturing process? Has that evolved as you've grown as a business?

Ana:
Yeah, I used to hand-roll them.

Phil:
Yeah. That's why I thought that might be the case.

Ana:
Yeah, we used to hand-roll them. I mean, I can't talk too much about it because I think it's pretty much like our little Coca-Cola secret recipe thing, to sort of protect it. Yeah, but I'm quite specific about...

Phil:
You're not doing it in the kitchen anymore.

Ana:
No, no, no, no. We're in London, we're in Harringay kind of warehouse district, which is amazing, really sustainable location. So we've got a really nice, in fact, it's nice when you run your own place because you can be super ethical and make sure you're paying everybody really well. You're doing all the really good stuff. So that side of things has been great.

But yeah, manufacturing started out with hand-rolling and evolved from there. So I mean, we set ourselves a massive task to take on something that never really existed and then just be like, let's create this on scale. And talking to people that could manufacture for us, machinery to help us, they're like, you're doing what? What do you want? And I'm like, oh no, it needs to be one centimetre, perfect spherical situation because that is based on experiments. I'm such a nerd. We're nerds, you know, we're academics. It needs to be one centimetre. It needs to be a sphere for optimum breakdown with minimum effort. And deviation from that actually changes the whole thing.
So yeah, it's quite funny. It's quite specific.

Phil:
Excellent, that sounds really good. So going back to conservation and we were talking about why you're doing these things. So there can be a danger that conversations around biodiversity can become quite gloomy and, as Kate said, feel quite overwhelming. How do you keep that message hopeful without sort of underplaying the seriousness of the problem?

Ana:
Interesting. Well, inherently, it has always been hopeful, right? So even though it feels doom and gloom, I feel like that's a lot of what we've been fed. Always it's the same doom and gloom. And one thing from being in business is how empowering it is to do something that everybody who's supported Seedball has really supported, something massive. They've all played a role in us being able to donate to schools and community gardens and Scouts etc. That is not doom and gloom. You know, we're asked all the time by schools that want a wildflower section, by community groups that want to improve their streets, by people who are opening up the backs of their terraces and all the lanes are now filled with flowers and wildlife. And over time, there is a huge movement to planting roadsides much more for wildflowers, you know, and that's something that we started campaigning for at the very beginning of Seedball.

And I see it all the time. You know, roundabouts now are filled with wildflowers. It wasn't there before. I used to harp on trying to get people involved on our roadsides for wildflowers and they're approaching us more, and train stations. I see pots of wildflowers at train stations now. That wasn't there. That is there now.

And it's in the psyche of everybody that it's not unacceptable to have wildflowers like my garden, where there's like an abundant madness of wildflowers. They don't see that as weeds. And I see that as a huge change. And I do see that a lot, you know. I was a Scout leader, I was saying before, Cubs, Beavers and the little ones. Hope never changes with any generation, you know, with any child. They want to make, they want to be with earth, you know. So at any one moment, the whole thing can change. And with something simple like this, we can change it at any moment. You know, the message is there.
Social media can be quite a good thing as well. You know, everyone says there's negatives, but we have a voice, we can get out there and share. I can spend my Seedball money on boosting posts that say, buy my product. Or I could say also, I boost my posts on things that say grow for birds or put in a pond. And it's absolutely nothing to do with Seedball, but it's part of our bigger mission. And people care. You know, people respond really well to that.

Also, another thing that's positive is a strange one for you. We drove to Cornwall not too long ago and arrived and the windscreen was just covered in flies again. And that's been years. Yeah, years since that happened. And the kids were like, well, what's that? And I was like, welcome to what happened in my childhood more, you know, so there's something happening that isn't doom and gloom out there. There's definitely something. And the fact that everyone's voting for their favourite butterfly and you can see where our money is going to, what can we feature wildlife. And yeah, I think there are positives there.

Kate:
You're talking about all the wonderful things you do, but you are a business. So how does that balance to actually making it commercially viable with all the other work you do?

Ana:
It's a great question. We were talking about this this morning, me and Em. It's been our biggest challenge, right? Because we are not business people, although we did that business training.

Phil:
That’s a weekend.

Ana:
And a few bits here and there, but because our whole aim of Seedball has always been mission-led, the actual business side of things has been things where people have had to coach us. And we had PhD supervisors, so we brought in a business coach to help us and tell us off and say, you need to pay attention to this on your bottom line and this and, and we've learnt as we've gone really.

And I definitely feel we've been in a big advantage, you know, to not do business as usual. The business has grown organically in the same way that we would say Seedballs would grow organically. We’ve gone slowly. We've learnt from our customers, we've learnt from people we've employed, people we've employed have taught us things, we've changed our practices based on… so, we're very much a flexible office space. We employ a lot of parents; we employ a lot of people who are caring for people. It's just come naturally.

And, you know, yeah, when we first got stocked in garden centres, in shops, we got stocked because it was a customer that was online. It was Twitter back in the day. And it was the shop that approached us. And it was up in Aberdeen. So we had our first shop that approached us and we were like, oh, how does this all work then? Tell us how this... And they did. And then we kind of...

Phil:
Excellent.

Ana:
Yeah. We built a team around us that helped us, that helped us now with sales, which help us with more the PR. We have an amazing PR team. Yeah. So we've kind of grown that. And when we first launched Seedball, we launched it where you were buying one seed ball for 20p. It was at the London Green Fair, not very commercial, but then we went to, we sold them outside, I think it was like Waitrose in North London.
And we saved up our money. And then we went to a product designer and then paid them to help us design the product and explain what it was. So yeah, we've bootstrapped it and we've never grown with any investment. We started with nothing and then everything was word of mouth.

Phil:
So Ana, you mentioned there about going to a product designer and getting the product more professionally put together, as it were. So how important has packaging and the storytelling been in helping people to understand the product?

Ana:
Yeah, this has been huge and we've grown over time, you know, so we started out with the tin, which the product designers helped us with, thankfully, because we wouldn't have had those skills. And over time it's evolved so that we have different sizes of packaging and illustrations of the flowers on the front, which we didn't start with.
And yeah, and then we moved to the point where, you know, we have a hand that shows you scattering and water falling on it and flowers coming. And this is all through people that know much more than us and have basically helped us translate, I suppose, research into how people can really easily see what this product is.

And we've added Point of Sale boxes, which also explain what we're doing and give much more a visual representation of what the design is and have hanging packs of seed balls, which also show the flowers. And we worked with amazing illustrators who help us and to translate, because it did start out and it was simply a Seedball kind of exploded diagram is what we started out with. Not really any reference to flowers at all.

Phil:
That's quite scientific.

Ana:
It was very scientific. And it's just… We've come so far, I don't even think I've got an original one with me. But they all have flowers on now, and also the animals that they're supposed to help, which is helpful. So we've got the bees on and we have different mixes now for different species, different species of bees specifically. So they're all shown on the packaging. Yeah.

Kate:
I think I've still got an original tin actually from many years ago. Yeah.

Ana:
Yeah, yeah. So obviously made by scientists, even though we had these designers in, it's how a scientist might do a product. And over time it's really, we've come so far and we're very proud of us. Our latest ones are with the Royal Entomological Society. And they just have these stunning, stunning illustrations. And we're just so proud of them. And we're like, wow. Yeah, that was, this is now the way. But yeah.

Kate:
But the thing is, the product is a thing of beauty isn’t it. The end product is so beautiful, you know it should look beautiful.

Ana:
We worked with Kew Gardens. We learn from everybody. So we're very humble in the fact that we knew we didn't know anything apart from wanting to save the world. So when Kew Gardens, we were stocked there, they tested our seed balls and they're like, oh yeah, no, they work. We want to stock you. We've had an amazing relationship with them. They've been really beautiful with us.

And they sent us what designs they wanted for their seed balls. Like,ah yeah, that makes sense why you've done it like that. Like, we're like, yeah, this is really great. And we started to see how in collaboration with people, how they were designing their packaging, how they were explaining things. And then Kew would say to us, will you do a point of sale or will you do a poster? And we'd come away and speak to designers and work with other people. So yeah, it's all been very much a co-produced business in a weird way. Yeah.

Phil:
How long has Seedball actually been around?

Ana:
So we started in 2011, and then we started as our little hand-rolled seed balls in 2011, and that was at London Green Fair that summer, I think, and we had our friend Karen come and help roll them. Shout out to you, Karen, and poor woman. She came down to visit and I don't think she expected to be doing that.

And then we launched the tins properly in 2012 and from there on really. But we started out as Project Maya. We started out as a community interest company, and then Seedball was a spin-out from that.

Phil:
So I was going to ask you about that. So I know you wear a number of different hats. So can you just tell us a little bit about Project Maya and maybe some of the other things that you're involved in? Because it's fascinating.

Ana:
My background is very strange. Yeah, I agree. But it all makes sense if you just come to the point of thinking this is a person who's a scientist, who's doing lots of experiments on how to, like, make an impact, I suppose, in the world.

So we started with Project Maya, and Project Maya is a community interest company and it has run campaigns. It started out with the Peat-free Pledge, and that was inspired with Professor Mark Reed, whose work we've mentioned before on IUCN, and we brought in big names into that. So there was even Vivienne Westwood supported that campaign, a number of people. Yeah, it was big at the time, because really wanting to raise the profile of how our peatlands are important and how long they take to restore. I mean, you know this message so well.

Kate:
Oh, yes!

Ana:
So that was the first campaign and the first thing Project Maya ever did. But its aim has always been to buy land. And Seedball was a spin-off to make money to buy land. And we now have bought land. So yeah, we've bought our first nature reserve and that is on the Devon/Cornwall border. It's amazing.
So the profits of Seedball, Seedball spun out and is a limited company. But Project Maya is a shareholder. So yeah. So its shares are then used to buy land, which is really exciting. And yeah. So that's how that all kind of links in, essentially, where our shareholder's Project Maya, Project Maya is buying land, and it allows Seedball to be a proper company instead of quite so, I guess, me and Emily and conservation-based. It allows it to be a little bit more commercial.

Yeah. And then my side quest, it does make sense, it’s gone property-wise, is that I was in the geography department at the University of St Andrews, and sitting next to me was the housing people, and they were working on the housing crisis. I have also got a side quest hat, if anyone ever comes and finds me, which is all based on emergency housing. And yeah, housing the homelessness, so I don't know if that's what you meant by my other side of things. Yeah, because it's really not the norm.

Phil:
It's not. It's fascinating. And I think it goes down to the DNA, you know, that you have of looking around you and wanting to solve problems that you see.

Ana:
Yeah. There's a quote that said, I don't know why… I'll get this wrong. “I don't know why somebody doesn't do something about that. And then I realised I am somebody.”

Phil:
Oh, I love that.

Ana:
And I thought about that for such a long time. And I was like, I am somebody and I might be small, but I can make a difference and I can make my difference where I am, and then just see where it expands out to. So that has expanded into, you know, creating wildflowers everywhere and buying some land and housing homeless, and people fleeing domestic violence and now sort of training people to get involved in that. And also, oh, another one as well, which I should mention, I have Fast Track Impact, which is a company that I started with Mark Reed on how you create impact in the world.
So it's training academics on how to take their research and turn that into real-world impact, whether that's for impact case studies in universities or increasingly, I think, commercial. Yeah, those four directions are a bit, they all make sense. And they're all about trying to save the world.

Kate:
Well, yeah. So you're providing habitat for wildlife, but also you're providing habitat for people. So that kind of emerges.

Ana:
Yeah. You're right, you know. We can't... I mean, and it also goes back to pro-environmental behaviour, I suppose, is that people can't care about something bigger than themselves if they're in a state of crisis. So I think that's also why with Seedball we try to get a price point as low as possible. And that's been an interesting blend commercially, because we are British-based, ethically produced, everything sustainable.

Yeah. But we want the entry point to be as low as possible. So that's been interesting. And that's why we do give them away free for anyone who's community groups and charities. They go for free and then people can get refills if they send the packaging back.

Kate:
So you've talked about Kew Gardens, who obviously are going to be very much behind what you're doing. But our podcast very much is primarily focused towards the garden trade, the industry which involves garden centres. So what role do you think garden centres can play in helping customers make more wildlife-friendly choices?

Ana:
So garden centres, I cannot underestimate how important I think they are. And one of the main things we wanted when we started out with Seedball is to be a product that went in garden centres. Because it was the garden centres that I went to first when I wanted to create a habitat, and it was the garden centres that I went to when I couldn't find the flowers that I wanted. You know, they were the influence. They are the garden influencers, you know, they're the places that I went to because I had followed my parents and my grandparents into garden centres.

So I was like, there, that's where you create a garden. So they're your touchpoint. They are the ones that are transformative to each generation. And I go to garden centres a lot. Too much, the kids might say, I suppose. All the garden centres, there's lots of people that bring their kids there, that eat there, that go with their grandparents there for Sunday lunch. Our local Dobbies has kids' clubs that they run, which are amazing. They get people involved.

And over time, garden centres have started showing the Perfect for Pollinators sign and they showed that. So we put that on Seedball. We're like, yeah, Perfect for Pollinators. This is great. That RHS sign that came up, amazing. And then they started adding in. We saw, oh, are they stocking something that says more 'good for bees', and expanded. It expanded. And now they have wildflower plug plants and wildflower and all the sections. It's really common for all garden centres to have hedgehog houses and not just your bird tables, which we started out with years ago. They have sections for wildlife gardening and that normalises it.

And also normalises it to, we know the younger generation are going to care, but the older generation can be more against change. They were more that kind of for the manicured lawns and that kind of perfect look. It's changed ideas of people that perhaps might be set in their ways by seeing that garden centres are evolving and having these wildlife-friendly areas, there's wildflower areas, running events where they are including children and making seed balls.

And it's not uncommon, you know, for them to be centralising themselves a little bit more in communities. And my mother-in-law lives in a little tiny village. The place where everybody goes is the garden centre for their afternoon teas, their catch-up, that's where they go. I think garden centres perhaps underestimate themselves, how important they are in this whole thing, and that if they had more signs up talking about wildlife, I'd welcome that. I'd do that for them. It's huge. It would make a big difference.
They do make a big difference already in how they've evolved, and they've been very open. And Seedball itself has quite a young following. And it's been great for us when we've worked with garden centres where garden centres have said, oh yeah, it's brought in more people because you've got lots of people on social media and they're following you and they're going into, they know that we're stocked here. And yeah, it's been brilliant. Nice.

Kate:
That's really good to hear.

Phil:
Yeah. So I think that leads me nicely on to my next question, which is what gives you hope for when you look at the future?

Ana:
Yeah. I suppose hope is always there because I think everybody wants a world that's filled with something beautiful, you know, the flowers, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, we all, it's inherent. You know, I've read that if you feel down, listen to five seconds of birdsong and the research says, you know, that will lift your mood because we are co-evolved with nature. And that signals we are safe as human beings if we hear birdsong.

So it gives me hope that it is such a normalised thing to have wildflowers in your garden, to care about nature. It is a normal thing to not have a manicured garden anymore, or have a wildflower patch in your anything. Could be even your church, like your local community centres, your schools. It's normal that there is a gardening club for wildlife or to care about it.

And yes, I feel like there is a lot of hope out there and as we grow as a company, there's more flowers that are out there and there's more people that are doing this. And as more people come into this sector and talk about this, then it's just exponential. There's no negative to that. You know.

Kate:
I love that. I love that way of looking at things. So Ana, thank you so much for talking. I just want to end with a question pertinent to me. If, you know, every UK gardener could do one thing for nature, one thing for wildlife, say you were having to do a social media post and you're only allowed to do one kind of top tip. What would it be?

Ana:
I mean, I have to say grow wildflowers, don't I? Buy Seedballs everybody! I have to say grow for the tiny things, grow for the pollinators. That's it. In your tiny bit of the world, however small that may be, even if it's just a hanging basket or a windowsill. Grow something for the tiny beings because from that comes everything and connects us from city to countryside and to each other as a society.

Kate:
Yeah. Oh, I like that. Wonderful.

Phil:
Well, listen, Ana, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. I've really enjoyed it and found it fascinating.

Kate:
A real education.

Ana:
Thank you so much for having me on. It's been likewise really fun to talk about things and reflect on why we're doing what we're doing as well. Thanks.