I'm delighted to be joined by two amazing women in the garden industry on the podcast today. First, we've got Angie Lloyd, a freelance marketing consultant, and ..."]

Kate Turner [00:00] I'm delighted to be joined by two amazing women in the garden industry on the podcast today. First, we've got Angie Lloyd, a freelance marketing consultant, and Jayne Hickling, The Allotment Cook. Welcome, both of you. Angie, let's start with you. Tell us a little about your background, because you've been in the industry for quite a long time.
Angie Lloyd [00:26] I realised today it's 11 years.
Kate Turner [00:28] That's quite a while, because you're only, what, 21?
Angie Lloyd [00:31] Well, no! I graduated 11 years ago this year, so I'm officially... I don't know what comes next after that!
Kate Turner [00:41] So tell me, what brought you into the industry?
Angie Lloyd [00:43] It was only by chance. I graduated from university with a degree in photography and started working for Britannia Building Society, which very shortly became the Co-operative Bank. That was fine, because I'd always thought I'd love to learn more about finances. I thought it would help me set up my own business, which was my original plan. Then the Co-op Bank had its various changes, so I started working for Randstad. They had an opportunity with DLF Seeds, and I started in their forage department.
Kate Turner [01:18] What department?
Angie Lloyd [01:19] The forage department, the agricultural side. I worked with forage grasses, countryside mixtures, stewardship schemes and things like that: putting orders in, making up mixtures and learning about varieties and how they're used in wild bird mixes and so on. That progressed into procurement with DLF, doing seed certification, from germination onwards, and then into marketing. I started as a marketing assistant. There was a need in the business, the marketing grew, and I got loads of experience, training and amazing opportunities to travel and see different parts of the business around the world. I was there for seven and a half years, and finished as UK Marketing and Digital Communications Manager.
Angie Lloyd [02:11] After Covid I moved to Hereford, so it wasn't feasible to keep travelling back and forth. I briefly left the industry and worked for a fintech business, still in marketing and product marketing. Then an opportunity came up at GIMA, so I came back into the industry. It was only a six-month hiatus. I'd always loved the GIMA Awards and thought, 'That's a great opportunity. I'd love to do it.' I was there for just under two years. Then I began working for Durstons in a freelance capacity the year before their rebrand, which we launched last year. We had some lovely feedback on that, and I've been working on growing their social following.
Kate Turner [02:56] I'm going to jump in for a minute. We've moved quite substantially away from a photography degree and somebody who wanted to set up her own business! And you're talking about DLF, which is a traditionally male-orientated seed company. Unless you started your degree much later, you're quite young, so you were a young woman in a very male-dominated business. How was that?
Angie Lloyd [03:30] I was the only female under 30 in the Inkberrow office for a few years. However, my colleagues in Denmark included an entire female marketing team and a lot of women in senior management. In the UK, my direct manager was a woman, and we had a female operations director in Scotland too. DLF has always had a very good ethos of developing women. The Danes have a good history of equality, and I think they were five or ten years ahead of the UK. That influence started coming through: investing in women, working with colleges and trying to attract them into what, as you say, is a very male-dominated seed company, particularly in amenity and golf.
Angie Lloyd [04:22] It was interesting, and a bit lonely at times. But I came to my first Glee in 2016, met some really great people and saw that there were other women out there, and opportunities. In Johnsons Lawn Seed, half my team were women. We were the most balanced team at the time. Since then there's been so much change, and more women in management. You can see they've really put in the effort to create those opportunities.
Kate Turner [04:55] That's good to hear. As you say, people associate grass and lawns with men. I don't know if you've found that, Jayne. Lawns and lawn seed are very much seen as a man's domain. I was a greenkeeper for a while, and people didn't like that. They really didn't want to talk to me about it at all.
Kate Turner [05:14] Aren't you doing a bit of work with David Hedges-Gower, who's very much the lawn man?
Jayne Hickling [05:22] He is very much the lawn man! I'm not really a lawn person, to be honest. That's my husband's domain, although I'm allowing him to do that, because I'm doing the vegetables and the pollinator-friendly plants!
Jayne Hickling [05:35] But you're right, it's very much seen as male-dominated. Vegetable growing and allotments are my background. When I first had an allotment, I felt like such a brave woman going into this male-dominated area. This was about 15 years ago, although I'd been growing for longer than that. Going onto an allotment felt like, 'Oh no, you don't do that. That's what men do.' I was very much in the minority then. But over the last 15 years, it's almost flipped the other way round.
Jayne Hickling [06:16] There's always a turnover of new people on allotments. We're getting more couples and families, but now we're also getting more women, whether it's friends joining together or women having their own plots. It's really different, and I have to say the allotments look a lot prettier. I'm not sure I should say that, but they do!
Angie Lloyd [06:47] They do say it's the feminine touch.
Jayne Hickling [06:49] There's much more thought about pollinator plants, which is a much bigger thing now. I remember seven or eight years ago a chap on the allotments said to me, 'Oh yes, because the ladies love the flowers, don't they?' And I said, 'Excuse me, I'm a fruit and veg girl!' I showed him my four plots, and he went, 'Oh yes, you are, aren't you?' Yes, I am! I do grow flowers, but I grow them for the pollinators. Early on there was a feeling that you didn't have flowers on an allotment, because it was all about food. But do you like bees? Do you like your crops to be pollinated?
Angie Lloyd [07:28] You've got to attract the pollinators for germination.
Jayne Hickling [07:30] Exactly. So it looks beautiful, and there's successful growing of fruit and vegetables because of all these flowers. It's a completely different visual landscape from what it was before. I think bringing more women into allotments has helped with that.
Kate Turner [07:45] Let's go back to GIMA. How long were you there, Angie?
Angie Lloyd [07:55] Just short of two years.
Kate Turner [07:58] And what was your job title?
Angie Lloyd [08:00] Membership and Marketing Co-ordinator.
Kate Turner [08:03] So you got to meet a lot of people, and you'd already built up contacts.
Angie Lloyd [08:08] Yes. Working with Johnsons at DLF, we always went to the GIMA Awards. Guy Jenkins was a council member and treasurer, so I took advantage of lots of the workshops and other opportunities. Otherwise, there weren't many opportunities for me to get out and meet people. Senior management would go to things, but not so much for me to meet others in the industry.
Kate Turner [08:29] When you started working with GIMA, you'd gone from a company that seemed to want to empower women and train them. Did you suddenly find it was a different world with some of the manufacturers you were meeting?
Angie Lloyd [08:44] It surprised me. It actually surprised me. In some places, where I'd seen what looked like opportunities for women, I came to feel it was a tick-box exercise. It was more, 'We've got X number of women in these positions.' But when you talked to them about their jobs, their jobs hadn't changed. I saw a talk earlier today, and I can't remember the speaker's name, I'm sorry, but she said her job hadn't changed, although she was now invited into the room and into the conversations. Yes, that's positive, but why hadn't her job changed?
Angie Lloyd [09:21] She was talking about taking advantage of training, and surely, when you're upskilling, the next stage is progression. There needs to be a balance between investing in people and moving them on. She quoted Richard Branson: 'Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.' She was right, and she's clearly very happy where she is, but I was still left wondering, 'Why hasn't her job changed?' Are these real opportunities, or just a tick-box exercise?
Angie Lloyd [09:42] I feel there needs to be that balance. In garden manufacturing, I think we've got a reasonably good balance. I saw a recent HTA report that said something like 64% of women were in leadership positions, but when you looked at the reality, only around 44% had a share of the jobs. There are about 722,000 jobs in horticulture, environmental horticulture and garden supply.
Kate Turner [10:20] It's massive, isn't it?
Angie Lloyd [10:22] There are so many opportunities. I feel everyone's chasing their tail, because alongside the lack of opportunities for women, or real opportunities for career progression, there's a lack of succession planning. There's not enough time for knowledge transfer, for training people, sharing that experience and introducing new people to the industry. Technology has replaced some things, but we're all doing a lot more now, and we can't just keep taking on more. We may reach a point where companies need a separate function to help train people and make sure that knowledge is passed on, because you can't replace internal experience.
Angie Lloyd [11:10] I was lucky at DLF because I worked with people who'd started there when they were very young and had been in the business for over 20 years. They had so much experience and wanted to share what they'd learnt. It's an interesting one. I don't know what the solution is, other than to keep talking about it.
Kate Turner [11:30] Jayne, I'm going to bring you in here. You do quite a lot on social media and create content. What I've noticed recently, even in the garden industry, is that influencers seem to be quite male-dominated now. A lot of brands seem to be going towards the men, and the men are allowed to be 'hot gardeners', which seems to be a new thing. Whereas women can't get away with that; you get the trolls and the abuse. Are you finding that?
Jayne Hickling [12:02] It's interesting, because when I first started doing gardening on social media there weren't many people doing it at all. Those who were coming through were female, so it was perhaps a little bit female-dominated. I first met you when you were working with GIMA at one of the press events, and that was quite female-orientated at the time. But yes, you're absolutely right. I'm noticing more and more young men, and men in their thirties and forties, who almost become the go-to people.
Jayne Hickling [12:34] If we're trying to reflect what's really happening, and as I said there are more women growing things on the ground, that needs to be reflected too. It's about personal identity. Content might be something pretty to look at, and we're reversing our roles here, but you also want somebody relatable to you as an individual who's out there growing.
Jayne Hickling [12:55] And when you talked about education: my other hat is as a secondary school teacher. Girls are not necessarily looking at horticulture. I'm hoping that changes, but my fear is that with the new natural history qualification, ordinary secondary schools won't have the facilities or the teachers with the knowledge to teach it. How are we going to get girls in at that younger age, so they can take advantage of the training and career progression? We need that across the board, with children generally. But just as STEM projects have targeted girls, we need to be doing that with horticulture.
Angie Lloyd [13:52] We need to find a way. There's so much science in horticulture: science in grass, in compost, in everything. Everything we do is backed by some form of data. Why isn't that included when we're talking about science and engineering? People tend to think of engineering, science and other things, but not necessarily horticulture.
Jayne Hickling [14:15] Exactly. And with food security being such an issue, we want people to be able to grow their own food. I think some of it is the label. You've got horticulture and agriculture, and where I am in Lincolnshire it's very much about agriculture. That can have a negative reputation, and it's very male-led because it's labour-intensive and people assume girls can't do that. Women can do that, but they don't seem to be the target. I don't know whether the advertising and promotion of jobs is really looking across the board at men and women.
Jayne Hickling [14:43] I'm worried we're going backwards again. When I first started, it was hard, and I was one of the few female gardeners in the parks department. That seemed to be changing, but with social media pushing young male gardeners, I worry there aren't enough female role models. And now that Monty Don has retired, what a fantastic time it would be for a younger woman to come through. But I'm worried that won't happen and we'll get another young man.
Angie Lloyd [15:37] Or a man who's already out there. Frances Tophill has got my vote.
Jayne Hickling [15:42] She's got mine, but I don't see it happening. When I look at comments on social media, they're all saying, 'Chris Hull, the next Monty Don', or naming another man. I'm not seeing women being put forward, and that's a shame.
Angie Lloyd [15:57] I remember doing market research around 2016 or 2017, before we rebranded Johnsons Lawn Seed. One of the things that came out of the focus groups was that men were interested in lawns, but they didn't go and buy the products.
Kate Turner [16:14] No. That's interesting.
Angie Lloyd [16:16] One of the things we wanted was a box that didn't look overly masculine. We wanted women to be able to stand in front of it and think, 'I get why I need this grass seed.' I can see why the Grass Gains branding would appeal to its market, and I love the monkey, but I can see how it might put some women off. That's their market, though. At Johnsons we were trying to open it up and not be just a very scientific company. We wanted to make everyday science accessible and attract women too. The focus groups said that the man might know more about the lawn and think of himself as the expert, but it's his wife or partner who goes into the garden centre, buys the product and says, 'Oh, look what I got.'
Jayne Hickling [17:03] Do you think it's because we've got an awful lot of career changers as well? Women historically haven't always felt they were part of horticulture or agriculture. But as they get older and become interested in gardening and growing, they may think about changing careers. There are opportunities for women who are career changers. The problem is that the salary doesn't match. We know about the glass ceiling on salaries for women across the board, and industries that are predominantly female are often undervalued and lower-paid.
Jayne Hickling [17:32] I don't know how we change it. We've been trying for such a long time, and you feel you keep hitting a wall, or progress goes backwards again.
Angie Lloyd [17:51] I think the only thing we can do is keep having those honest conversations. I feel it has tailed off a bit. Around Covid and just after, there was a real buzz about getting young people into the industry and more women into horticulture.
Jayne Hickling [18:06] The YPHA was a real force.
Angie Lloyd [18:08] It was great. People such as Mollie, Liam, Sarah and Abby were involved, and it was a lifeline for people like me coming into the industry who didn't know many people. There can be a bit of a hierarchy in horticulture. Michael touched on it in his talk earlier: why are people afraid to pronounce plant names? I still get nervous sometimes. There's that air of knowing the right thing to say, and I've been corrected by people when I've pronounced 'dahlia' differently. I studied English language, and phonetically I'd say it one way, but somebody else insists on another.
Jayne Hickling [18:54] There are regional differences as well.
Angie Lloyd [18:58] Exactly. I'm a country bumpkin who's moved over the hill to Hereford, and the regional differences are enormous. It's different where you are in Lincolnshire.
Jayne Hickling [19:07] I have to admit, I did correct somebody online, but I did it privately, in a message. People often pronounce plant and vegetable names differently. Sometimes there's an Italian origin, and that changes the pronunciation.
Angie Lloyd [19:25] I wouldn't know that.
Jayne Hickling [19:26] But language is living, whereas Latin isn't a living language, so I think you can pronounce it how you want!
Kate Turner [19:34] Let's talk about Glee, because we're here at Glee Birmingham 2026. I'd like to hear your takeaways from the show.
Kate Turner [19:44] One thing I've found really interesting this year is the problem with the peat ban. There is no peat ban. Companies have been pushing for it, and it's still not happening. Five years ago, when I got into peat-free compost and sustainability, I thought we'd be much further along by now. But it's not just that. What worries me about Glee this year is the number of stands selling plastic plants, plastic hedges, plastic this and plastic that. I'm going to say it: plastic tat.
Kate Turner [20:23] We're in an industry where companies get criticised for not being sustainable enough, perhaps for having too much plastic in their packaging even though they're trying hard. And yet there are hundreds of stands with what I think are petrochemical, plastic-based products. That worries me.
Angie Lloyd [20:45] I agree. Last year you could see that some of the artificial-grass suppliers, who used to be very prominent at the show, had stopped coming. They'd heard the message and gone away to look at sustainable solutions. But let's face it, you can't make plastic anything without it ending up somewhere, potentially leaching and contributing to contamination and environmental health issues. I understand that some people, including people with disabilities, find artificial products easier to maintain, and that there are reasons people choose them.
Jayne Hickling [21:29] For me it's not so much the artificial grass this year. There are animals made of artificial grass now, and all these other products. It's almost like it's been brought in by stealth. That worries me. It's a bit like compost. I won't name anyone who's here, but I saw a product within the last year that was described as having peat moss. I thought, 'Hang on, where does peat moss come from? Peat bogs. It's peat. It's not peat-free.'
Angie Lloyd [22:04] Irish sphagnum moss.
Jayne Hickling [22:06] Exactly. Companies used to say '100% peat-free', and now sometimes it's just 'peat-free'. Where has that '100%' gone? And the language around peat moss worries me. We were supposed to have had the peat ban already, with the date for consumer sales originally set for 2024, and commercial use later. I know someone who has their own nursery and has been preparing for this for 15 years. They're peat-free and grow everything that way. I get annoyed when people say, 'You can't grow things in peat-free.' Yes, you can.
Angie Lloyd [22:41] Hillier are championing peat-free, for example.
Jayne Hickling [22:45] They always have. There's a campaign at the moment trying to encourage more supermarkets to focus on produce grown peat-free. There's also some excellent work happening in Lincolnshire. I know a peat-free compost business there; they're farmers first and have developed their compost, and they're working with retailers and growers. There's a Tesco project growing broccoli peat-free, which is fantastic. It shows what can be done. I think it's an easy way out for companies to say, 'We can't do it,' because the old way is easier.
Angie Lloyd [23:28] And it's cheaper, until the price changes.
Jayne Hickling [23:32] Exactly. We've had one of the driest summers on record. Climate change is a thing.
Angie Lloyd [23:43] You can't ignore it any more.
Jayne Hickling [23:44] If the dates keep changing, are we serious about this? If we're not serious about the peat ban, why wouldn't people bring in more plastic or carry on with other things? We need to get serious about it. There was a deadline. We need to put that deadline back in place and stick to it.
Angie Lloyd [24:03] I don't know if you've been to Spring Fair or Autumn Fair before, but they're open to those exhibitors. For a long time the garden industry has been quite hidden away unless you've been exhibiting at those shows, so you don't always see what's happening in those markets. I went to Spring Fair in February and was surprised by how much artificial material was coming back. But there were also products made from hemp-based plastics and renewable materials, and there's such a big opportunity there.
Jayne Hickling [24:31] Yes, there are Dutch exhibitors here doing hemp coverings, which are really interesting. I feel they should be pushed more, but they're right at the back. I've had a lovely conversation with them. Their product is a weed suppressant, helps retain heat and moisture, and is renewable. Michael Perry was also showing plant supports and moss poles made from miscanthus. It's fascinating, but I feel Glee is missing a trick. We should be pushing sustainability.
Angie Lloyd [25:12] There's an opportunity. There are always opportunities.
Kate Turner [25:14] Let's wrap up by being positive, then. What would you say is something really positive about the garden industry? Let's start with you, Angie.
Angie Lloyd [25:25] Do you know what? One thing I love is meeting great women who inspire me every day. Everyone's so friendly. Even when you're competitors, apart from a few who are really competitive and grumpy, there's friendly, co-operative competition. This is probably the only place where we're all in the room together and can have a laugh. You can't really do that in tech, in agriculture or on the amenity side in quite the same way. I've been to SALTEX and the big turf events, and those can be hard work.
Kate Turner [26:04] Real man's territory.
Angie Lloyd [26:05] I remember being gawped at when I walked through as a woman a few years ago. But in the last three, four or five years you've started to get female master greenkeepers coming through, being put into influential roles, and the environmental side is coming through too. There are people championing that. I met a female greenkeeper at Wenvoe Castle about six or seven years ago, and I thought she was fantastic. Her knowledge was up there with anyone I'd spoken to. She'd worked her way into that position, and everyone respected her. I thought, 'There is change happening,' even if it isn't happening everywhere.
Angie Lloyd [26:43] Working with Durstons, I've seen women rising through their business too, particularly in the family. The next generation are all female. Katie's there already, in what I think is the seventh or eighth generation. So the changes are coming, eventually.
Jayne Hickling [27:04] I'm actually happy I came this year, because I wasn't sure I would. And I think Glee is different year on year. The first time I came it was brilliant. Last year it was more condensed and so busy that people didn't have time to talk. What I've loved this year is that it's more spread out. I think there are just as many people visiting, but there's more time to talk to them.
Jayne Hickling [27:22] As I go round, people know that sustainability is my thing, and I've been able to have some really good conversations. People have had time to talk to me too. It's that exchange of information, ideas and knowledge that's exciting. That's why I'm excited about the exhibitors with the hemp: it's such a good idea and they're passionate about what they do.
Angie Lloyd [27:53] And you get to talk to other people in a company, people you might not meet at something like a garden press event: the product developers, salespeople and the people who really live and breathe the product.
Jayne Hickling [28:06] It's also been nice to share my own knowledge. I can say, 'I understand where you're coming from, because of this, this and this.' It makes you feel good when you can share what you know and the other person shares what they know. That's what it's about.
Angie Lloyd [28:20] That's what I really enjoy too. This industry is blessed with groups of people who are ready to share knowledge. I just want us to stay open. We need to keep having the right conversations, being open and honest, and staying positive. Yes, there are problems and issues, but how do we move forward in a good way? We need to start asking ourselves those questions.
Kate Turner [28:48] One question we've been asking all our guests is: what could the garden sector learn from industries outside its own little bubble?
Jayne Hickling [29:00] Gosh. I think it's looking at where other industries are going wrong. We've been talking about women, and teaching, for example, is a very female-dominated profession and it's vastly undervalued.
Angie Lloyd [29:17] My mother was a teacher. I understand.
Jayne Hickling [29:18] It's not even just the wages. It's being undervalued, which is the bigger thing.
Angie Lloyd [29:24] And it's flipped a bit because they're trying to attract more men into teaching.
Jayne Hickling [29:28] Traditionally, when men go into teaching, they're more likely to progress into senior management and higher pay. It's wrong, because there are amazing women out there in every industry. We need to look at other industries and say, 'Well, they're doing that wrong. What should we do differently?'
Jayne Hickling [29:47] There's also this idea, and it's not just about women, that if you're passionate about something you don't need to be paid as well for it. You love what you do, it's a vocation, so why should someone pay you more?
Angie Lloyd [29:59] Whereas if you've got a passionate man who's retired, they'll pay him a high consultancy fee!
Jayne Hickling [30:10] It's true. We've discussed it within the Garden Media Guild. You're asked to do a talk and there's this assumption that because you're passionate about gardening, why would you need paying? Well, I'm spending my time preparing a talk, travelling and coming to give it. It's work.
Angie Lloyd [30:28] You wouldn't expect a plumber to come out and not be paid.
Jayne Hickling [30:33] Exactly. You couldn't just say, 'Pop round and fix that, and we'll give you a cup of tea.' It's about valuing what we do.
Angie Lloyd [30:40] One hundred per cent. It's not valued enough. But there has been such an increase in interest: celebrities getting involved in gardening, green prescribing and more community gardening. That might help raise its standing. I saw a job advertised, I can't remember who it was for, looking for a horticultural person to look after workplace gardens. It was a very high salary, higher than some head gardener positions. Other sectors are trying to attract people out of horticulture. They might not understand the difference in wages, but they can see the value and all the benefits that come from it. They're trying to bring those people into their businesses, so perhaps we'll see a change.
Jayne Hickling [31:29] I hope so.
Kate Turner [31:33] Hopefully this time next year we'll be chatting and all earning really good salaries. Next year we'll all be millionaires!
Angie Lloyd [31:43] I'll invite you all to my villa.
Kate Turner [31:45] Lovely! We can only dream. Thank you both so much for coming to talk to me. It's been lovely to chat, as ever. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Angie Lloyd and Jayne Hickling [31:56] Thank you. You too.