Kate: On today's podcast, Phil and I are joined by the lovely Charlotte Howard. She is a garden designer, has her own company called Capability Charlotte. She has an RHS masters of horticulture. That's not gardening. It's horticulture. And a national diploma in horticulture. But one of the main reasons we've got Charlotte on today. Well, there's two reasons. She's also the founder of a Facebook group called Women in Gardening Network, fondly known as WIGS. And this has over 3000 members. And she's not shy on putting her views forward. And last year, she was seen on Gardeners World with [Eric?] Anderson talking about why she wants artificial turf banned. She has a campaign which is hashtag time for turf. Not only that, she's also very recently started a campaign highlighting the problems that women find getting decent, comfortable and affordable workwear. So, Charlotte, it's lovely to meet you.

Charlotte: Hello, Kate, and hello Phil

Kate: So, Charlotte, can you give us a bit of background about yourself? Tell us how you got into horticulture and and what your role is now?

Charlotte: Yeah. So I have, quite a varied background, sort of didactic career and, portmanteau career, as they say. So I started out, in, retail management in my 20s and did lots of eccentric things in my spare time. I was the first fully licensed boxing emcee. I was a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. I was in a girl band. I did all of that sort of thing. And then, my parents had a beautiful garden. It used to be open on the National Garden scheme, and it was always something I love to do as a hobby. Both my parents were self-employed, my father an architect, my mother an antique dealer, an interior designer, and they were both designers and creatives. And it was just something I'd always envied that they had their time was their own. I quickly realised at the age of 29 that I was pretty much unemployable. I don't like being told what to do, so I decided to make my hobby, my passion, my career. So I went to gardening college and did my national diploma and started my business Capability Charlotte from there. So, I haven't looked back. I think horticulture other than gardening, because it's all encompassing. It is a fantastic career to be in because it can take you wherever you are. So I've experienced some ill health in the last five years, so I've been able to give up gardening and become a consultant. So, yeah, it's a fabulous career. I just wish it was better paid and more comfortable clothing.

Kate: Brilliant. So do you find that all that kind of design and artistic, creative backgrounds helped you with being a garden design and a consultant?

Charlotte: Without a doubt Kate, my design background completely informs everything I do. I've got a love of history and a love of form going and being dragged around lots of stately homes as a child. You see lots of gardens, and you just absorb it. It comes in as osmosis. So, yeah, without a doubt, I yeah, I think it makes me a more interesting person hopefully.

Kate: So we're just going to talk about some sustainability, native planting very hot topics within the garden industry, have been for a few years. And can you tell me how you address these subjects in what you do?

Charlotte: Yeah, I think it's really important to to tackle sustainability in everything we do. I think as designers, we have a responsibility to do so because we are losing our own natural world, wild areas, our nature reserves are dwindling, I think its 70% or something like that. So gardens are becoming an essential wildlife corridor. And although they are essentially, a piece of artifice, they're artificial in that kind of way. We still need to make sure that the gardens are there to attract wildlife. It's quite funny, actually. I was going back through my old garden designs because I'm doing a garden club, talk about my life as a designer. When I was going about my very, very first garden design was a wildlife garden. So it’s obviously something that's been important to me. I think things are changing. I think the society Garden of Garden Designers has picked up with that. You know, long may it continue, but I think there are quite a few designers out there that do not put nature and also water conservancy, and the use of water front and center into their designs is too much hard landscaping, that kind of thing. So whenever I create gardens, I think about the practicality for the clients first, how are they going to use it. And I think an almost as equal is how is nature going to use it. The two must be in symbiosis, otherwise it just doesn't work.

Kate: Thank you. So Phil, you have a question.

Phil: Yeah. So it's picking up on that really, generally looking at the sort of garden and landscaping industry, where do you see that the sector is falling down from an environmental perspective?

Charlotte: Gosh. Where where where are they? Where are they falling up? The sector I find incredibly frustrating. And I think some of the organisations that run the sectors, I'm going to mention Barley, I'm going to mention them because, they are continually awarding, gardens that have plastic grass in them, for example, they're awarding things that are heavily hardscape. They're promoting porcelain composite decking, all of that sort of thing. And they, you know, I've lobbied them, I've spoken to them, I've met them in person and they are refusing to change. We're still, you know, the big dirty secret about horticulture is the amount of plastic in our industry. You know, we all give out the feeling of being, you know, at one with nature. Yet you order some plants and they come decked in plastic. And yeah, I find that really frustrating because at my end I'm doing my very best. I'm putting nature front and center and into all of my designs. And then I place a plant order and I get the sea of plastic that I have to now deal with. Things like, you know, the products that come, the little pellets they have, microplastics are wrapped around them. So we're basically pouring microplastics into our soil. And I think that's it. We ignore the importance of improving our soil at our peril.

Phil: I mean, that's interesting. There are some quite, new developments that that I've seen, you know, things like plant pots that are made from wool and that sort of thing. So, you know, if those sorts of developments and innovations can be, replicated and rolled out cost effectively. Yeah. You know, that's the sort of thing which I think could be, a game changer for the industry.

Charlotte: Yes. And of course, there is supply and demand. And I also concern that there seems to be quite a heavy emphasis, obviously, with the changeover from peat to non peat. You know, that there's, there are very few decent alternative to peat free compost. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on coir, which is equally unsustainable in my opinion, comes from a foreign country. And it's a great, huge amount of water used in coir. So yeah. Yeah, I think you're y right. You have to think about, you know, all of these innovations. I posted on LinkedIn about a product that I received, full of plastic. And I had loads of responses from companies saying, oh, yeah, yeah, we do this, we do this with cardboard. And we've approached all these companies and we've never heard nothing from them. So yeah, maybe it's quite hard to make such major changes within the company and I understand that.

Kate: It takes time. Having worked for a big company myself, you know, it takes time, folks. And it's cost. But there are changes happening they’re just a bit slower than I think we'd like them. I do know that, yeah, within plant food, especially the pellets most now, the plastic has been taken out, but then what happens is you then get consumers complaining. So, it's such a tough one, especially with the peat free where the consumers complain. And I know coir is definitely a couple of companies I know don't don't use any coir because of that very, very reason. You're just replacing one problem with another environmental problem.

Charlotte: Absolutely. And I agree. And it's you know, it's all well and good for me to moan at these companies. But if I can't come up with, you know, what do you, what do you suggest, Charlotte? Well I don't know, just do better please.

Phil: Kate, in her introduction there, mentioned that you're running a campaign to ban or or sort of reduce artificial turf.

Charlotte: Ban

Phil: Good. Okay. Good to clarify that. So to ban artificial turf. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Charlotte: Yeah. It's an interesting story how I came to this, slightly deranged part of my life. I actually had plastic grass. I will admit, I am a reformed drug addict, as they say. Not really drug addict. Reformed plastic grass addict. So, I live near Bath. They installed it in the shopping center in Bath. Easy grass. I give them another name. And I remember raving about it because this was in the early noughties where we just didn't know any different. I was still at college at the time, and I just thought, what a great product. It doesn't look like the stuff in butcher's windows. It's got little bits of dead grass. I thought it was amazing. I thought, ooh, I'll get some of that. And I can't believe it. Not only did I have plastic grass, but I had it underneath my hot tub. Two of the most awful things you can have, I don't possess either now, I hasten to add. And, yeah, it's one of the biggest regrets of my life, buying that two meter by two meter patch of plastic grass. But I'm kind of glad I did it. So I shared it anyway on on social media, and somebody just called me out on it and said, do you know how crap that is for the environment? Charlotte? And I said, well, its certainly bad plastic. And they explained to me and, you know, I sort of was a bit annoyed at first, but like I do, I went home and obsessively researched it and then just sort of realised how terrible it is.

And when you think about it, I really, really hate weed control memory. I already hate that from when I was at college, because you just see it destroys the soil beneath. And actually this is exactly the same kind of thing, but worse. So, I kept that bit of plastic grass until I moved home and then fobbed it off and on the new owners. But I kept it because it was actually really good to show how awful it got, because weeds would grow on it and moss would grow on it and cats would do their business on it. So actually I did use it as a kind of case study, I suppose, for want of better description. So I came to it from that really. And then probably a combination of ADHD and magic of excessiveness, I sort of become more and more obsessed with getting the stuff banned. And I found, you know, I've been speaking to quite a lot of really good experts. Dr Kyla Bennett over in America is an incredibly expert on the dangers of the chemicals which it gives out. And you just realise how we're poisoning, wildlife and our children. So, yeah.

Phil: I mean, I think the use of artificial grass from a consumer's point of view, you know, quite often now they're looking for a quick fix, especially in garden. And, you know, everything is they need the hack. They need the something to get to the end result. They don't want to put the effort in. You know, it's like learning the guitar or whatever. You know, they want to get to the end result. They want to be on the stage and performing. They don't want to do the hours of practice. So, you know, I can see what the attraction of artificial grass can be for people. What are some of the things that you think a designer or the consumers can take on board?

Charlotte: Can we first of all discuss the attractions actually, because it's a very interesting point that you've brought up because we need to find out why are people choosing plastic grass first before we can then think of different solutions? Because as a designer, we are a solution faced, business. So people come to me with a problem and I have to find a solution. So as a designer, I approached it and say, why are people choosing plastic grass? And a lot of people, you know, I look out, I'm in a new build. I look out for all the tiny little postage stamp gardens around me. People have kids and dogs and they just, the soil is so bad. You can see why people make that decision because as you so rightly said it Phil. It is a quick fix, but it is all it is. It's like putting a Band-Aid on top of the problem really. It doesn't actually fix the key, which is soil, and it's also a status symbol as well. It's people say it's because it's low maintenance, but it's not actually low maintenance. You have to clean it. You have to hoover it, all of that sort of stuff. So we need to then, because you know it's all well and good to be very snobby about it and go “ew, ew, nature!” at people. But people have busy lives. They have dogs, they have children, they have a disability. So we need to come up with solutions to fix that. So that's where the challenge is. We need to sort of find an alternative which will replace the plastic. And that's where the challenge comes. I do actually have my time for term report, which is available on my website capabilitycharlotte.com which goes through all of the various arguments for plastic grass. And I hopefully come up with a cogent argument against plastic grass. Yes, it is low maintenance but it's not no maintenance, so every garden will require maintenance. Now, my, messy patch outside has a lawn, has a small lawn. I mow it four times a year because I'm lazy and I really hate doing it. So I would say that my garden is probably fairly low maintenance. I don't scarify it and do all the aeration you're supposed to do. It is fine. Obviously I'm very lucky I didn't have kids or children just to recalcitrant cats, but, so I think four times a year, mowing for 20 minutes each time is. Yeah, pretty good. If you were to have, artificial grass or plastic death carpet, as I prefer to call it, because, I don't think it is grass. If you were to have plastic death carpet, you'll have to wash that. So every time your animal decides to defecate on said grass, the smell is just. I don't know if you've ever smelt plastic grass.

Kate: Oh, yeah. Oh.

Charlotte: So you'll have to wash that away. Whereas if it was on real grass, you just have to, you know, scoop it up and the, you know, the organisms within the soil eat all the bacteria. So it's actually more hygienic, which people think is weird, people find nature a bit scary. Which is another issue. Then you have to brush it up. So, easy grass, for example, do offer a maintenance service, which is 250 pounds a quarter to brush up and clean your grass because like all carpets, the pile flattens after a while. You can't have a barbecue on the grass. You can't drop any wine on the grass because you've got to clean that up. You can't have a fag and drop your fag on the grass, because you'll get a hole. All of those sort of things so the maintenance aspect is a fallacy, which is, you know, quite easy to burst that bubble. But the easiest bubble to burst is the cost. So to have a properly laid, obviously, if you go down to, let's mention Wickes, for example, and get some crappy old grass from there and flop it on and hope for the best, but that's just going to blow away in the first storm. To have it properly laid, you need to have an aggregate sub-base, which is a basically crushed limestone. You have to have possibly sand or grano depending on whether you've got animals or not. I've just been watching them do it in the house next door. You have to have timber edging. You have to batten it all down. It's like, you know, 2 or 3 days work. And it costs, for a 50 meter square lawn, which is your kind of average. Most of the new build gardens are about 50 meter squared, ten by five. It will cost you 3,000 pounds to lay a good quality artificial, 3,000 pounds!

Kate: Lot, isn't it?

Charlotte: And that's not one of the top flight ones. You know, you could be looking at 5 or 6 if you have the easy grass Mayfair range or whatever. So the first option would be to get a robo-mower. I mean, I've actually had a look online and I could find a refurbished one for 300 pounds. You could have a top flight one, even of the posh ones are £1,500 and that's it. Or you can hire a gardener. So a gardener rate should be from 20 pounds, between 20 and 35 pounds. So, looking at a basic mowing gardener, not a skilled, skilled gardener would be about 20 pounds an hour. So if you're looking at the mowing season, maybe 34 weeks max, if that one a week, basically your gardener could come and measure your lawn for the lifespan of a plastic death carpet. So a plastic death carpet lasts about 15 years. But only last 15 years if you maintain it. If you don't maintain, it will last 5 to 10.

Kate: That's such an interesting statistic that, you know, if you are someone that lives on their own, you've got someone to chat to.

Charlotte; Well that's it. When I was a maintenance gardener for 15 years until I got ill and yeah, I was mostly older ladies that I used to go and look after because they wanted another female in the garden. And, yeah, I'd go and do errands for them. They gave me the shopping list, or they tested me and said can I get some milk on the way. I'd often be the only person they'd see all week. Many, many times. I can't tell you how many times, you know, I've knocked on the door and they've not answered. And they’ve been on the floor and I've had to call an ambulance and stay with them. So there's all of these things. I mean, that's another social aspect.

Kate; It's another episode.

Charlotte: But my friend Katrina from Bath Garden Design described herself as the fourth emergency service or something. And, yeah, no, it's true.

Kate: It's absolutely true.

Charlotte: Yeah. Because people say, oh, but disabled people need their independence. And that just boils my what's it? Because as a disabled person myself, please don't speak for me. And I'd be quite happy to employ somebody. We have a cleaner here because I really hate cleaning. And I'm not well enough to do it. I don't feel less of a person. I've given someone a job and, you know, he does a really lovely job.

Phil: So could you imagine any situation where, artificial turf would be needed?

Charlotte: No

Phil: None at all?

Charlotte: Sorry, that was a very short. No, I cannot see any situation where I personally, as a designer, cannot see any situation where plastic death carpet is the solution. There's always an elegant solution. Have clover have tapestry lawns. Tapestry lawns are very fashionable at the moment.

Phil: So with the tapestry lawn, quite interesting. I think I saw a photograph of one the other day. What's the maintenance like of something like that?

Charlotte: So, yes. Tapestry lawns were invented by a man called Professor Lionel Smith. So if you're at all interested, he's got a very dry book out on it and one day I want to sort of paraphrase it and make it a bit more user friendly. So the idea, I mean, he's a great guy. The idea of tapestry lawns is, you know, seed trays, you basically grow a different variety of plants, maybe clovers, maybe violets or something on a seed tray, so one variety per tray. Then the trays grow and then you take them out of the seed trays. So the root system is underneath. And they are like tiny little rectangles of turf. And then you lay them out like little stitches. So that's why it's called a tapestry lawn.

And then maintenance wise, all you have to do is give it a cut once a year so you can not cut it, but then it will obviously become like a meadow. Yeah. So it would be like having a wildflower meadow, but it's actually a bit easier than the wildflower meadow because you're not reliant on the soil being poor or anything like that. So and then eventually all the plants grow into each other and become this wonderful tapestry of different flowers. And because it's incredibly biodiverse and his book is fascinating because it gives you all of the different kinds of soils and what plants would suit your area. So my dream one day is to be able to go into a garden center, and instead of seeing row upon row of bedding plants, to see where upon row of seed trays full of tapestry lawn bedding. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Kate: That would be lovely. I love that.

Charlotte: Because at the moment there's no way to buy a tapestry lawn commercially. You have to grow it yourself, so that requires a lot of greenhouse space.

Kate: So I suppose a lot of the maybe some of the green roof companies could maybe take that technology and apply it to lawns.

Charlotte: And some of them are I mean, there are companies that still insist on using plastic mesh on their backing so I will not use them. But I have been working with Lindum turf quite a lot recently and they're developing very unusual - other wild flower turf companies are available - but they don't have any plastic mesh backing and they're also developing lots of different systems. So I did talk to him about tapestry lawns. So yeah, that would be great. But it'd be nice to make your own one up actually wouldn't it. To just sort of go with a shopping list and go like I’ll have three of those, four of those, five of those. Take it all home. Plant them with your kids and then just watch it grow and and but so they're fine for kids to play on and roll out on the you can lie on them and have picnics. They probably wouldn't withstand sort of day upon day of football, but they would withstand general family garden use without a doubt.

Phil: Yeah. That's fascinating. I love that idea. What sort of can be done to change people's attitudes, do you think both consumer and within the industry towards artificial grass?

Charlotte: Gosh, now changing people's attitudes towards artificial grass is is a challenge. And I've been campaigning now, I suppose, for about five years. I'm quite outspoken and I'm finding more and more probably the way I campaign, maybe a little bit too in your face. So I definitely think shaming people is not the way forward. And that's what I used to do. And I don't think it was the way forward. I think it’s not to shame but to give people the information I guess. We need to educate people about soil. We need to educate people about grass. You know, kids, when I was at school we were taught about gardens and growing things. Kids aren't taught, how to feed themselves, how to grow things, how to grow their own food. Growing your own food is the ultimate political act. But of course, industry doesn't want you to grow your own food because it doesn't make money. So yeah, educating but in a non patronizing way and I know I need to change the way I do things and be a little less angry. I get quite angry about things. I see myself as, you know, the suffragette movement, you have the suffragettes that were quite angry and set fire to things and destroyed paintings. That's me. But then you have the suffragists who were the sensible ones and said, well, we can make Charlotte go away, so let's sit around the table. Why? And then Charlotte might go away. So maybe we continue to use me as the annoying one. Then we have some calm, sensible grown ups doing the actual work.

Phil: What plant always brings a smile to your face. And why?

Kate: My first thought, is a plant called Rubus Cockburnianus. You asked me to lighten the mood

Phil: And why does that put a smile on your face?

Charlotte: Because it sounds rude. And I'm a child. I actually went for my RHS exams wearing a t-shirt with it, because there's a guy that does Rubotony. Anyway, and I shall now give you a sensible answer. So, roses, I love roses. My late mother was an obsessive rose collector. She loved David Austin roses. So I love a big, fat, juicy pink rose. I love Gertrude Jekyll. Oooo, I sounded like Christine Walkden just then didn’t I.

Kate: You did, you’re going northern on us…

Charlotte: I’m morphing into Christine Walkden. I love how luscious she is. Yeah, I love Gertrude Jekyll. She's a good doer. I usually put a Gertrude Jekyll in most of my garden designs because she's easy. Just like me. Yeah, so roses. Oh, love roses. I know it's a bit of a cliche because everyone says.

Phil: No, no. That's lovely. Can you give us, a great gardening tip that either we could act on now or in the future?

Charlotte: Soil, improve your soil. And that is something you can act on now. So get in touch with your local farmer, get some well rotted manure, chuck it on the ground, leave it on the surface. Don't dig it in. And let the worms and the birds do the work. So get your soil sorted first before you do anything.

Phil: Mulch. That's Kate’s favourite project.

Charlotte: Mulch, Mulch, Mulch! Ha ha ha

Kate: So, earlier in my introduction, I talked about the Women in Gardening Network Facebook group, which you started. Now people might say, well it's just another Facebook group, but actually it's become a bit more than that. What prompted you to set up the Women in Garden group?

Charlotte: Well, I was a member of a very, very large horticultural group on Facebook, one of the largest. I won't mention its name because it's not fair, because the people that run it actually quite nice people. But there was a discussion on there. It had sort of been rumbling in my head for a while, and there was a particularly discussion, it actually didn't involve me, it was somebody else, it was a lady asking about bras. And you know, what bras do you wear that are comfortable? And of course, it then got lots of sniggering schoolboy humour. A particular gentleman who I thought should know better. He was one of the great vanguards for the horticulture world. His landscape advice is sought by everybody, he made some particularly pure comment, and I was just enraged. So I just thought, you know what? I'm going to start my own group, and those tossers can go and do one. So, the idea was it for it to be a safe space for women to be able to talk about bras, periods, where we pee, all of those sort of things that we defined embarrassing to talk about in mixed sex groups, but are a very real problem for women that work outdoors. Very often we don't get access to toilets, even though we should have access to toilets. I can tell you a funny story, once, when I was having to do an al fresco pee with the neighbour on the other side of the wall, I was mid-pee, “oh ‘ello Charlotte, how you doing” and I had to have this long ten minute conversation with my trousers around my ankles because I can't pull them up. So anyway, this is the very real problem of being a female horticulturalist. So I started it and I knew quite a few female gardeners. And so I said do you want to come and join my group. So there were about 20 of us. Then it became 30, then it became a hundred, then 500. And now, last loor it was about 3100 women. And yeah, so essentially at its core it is a safe space for women. And I don't care what men say, if you want to go and have your safe space, I actually think men should have their own safe space because, you know, the same gentleman who met thought made a joke about bras, said that my group is sexist. But if you want to have a manly gardening group, do. Because actually, sometimes men need a space away from women. And that's perfectly. I think men do need man time! Anyway. So yes, I started a group. It's just growing and growing. So it is still, essentially at its core, a safe space, non-judgmental. So if you know, if you're a hobby gardener or starting out because, again, there's so much snobbery in this industry and it just drives me up the wall.

So I wanted to encourage women to become horticulturalist because, you know, I was a career change and it changed my life for the better, made me happier and healthier. It got rid of my seasonally acquired depression, all of those things and I’m a mistress of my own destiny now, so I just wanted… So even if you're an amateur, I want you to feel that you can join the group and take on the expertise and experience of all of these amazing, powerful, strong women. They're quite scary. Some of them, they scare me, very much. They scare me, which is funny because I think I can be quite scary. But. Yeah. And I just love the way it’s… And, we have two rules. Don't be a dick is rule one, and the other one is do not promote plastic grass, because it's my group and I will make up my own rules. And I think, don't be a dick. Pretty much covers everything, really. And but yeah, it's it's really great and everyone loves it.

Kate: I am actually a member of that group, and, I found it really helpful, really interesting. The one thing that's really struck me is how difficult women find to charge a decent price for their services. I know men. Yes, they can as well, but it really does seem to be women, especially people who've taken some time out or like second careers or mum’s going back to work trying to ask for a decent wage is yeah, that seems to be one of the hardest things.

Charlotte: Yeah. And that's what I keep banging home about, is that you need to value yourself. And somebody I noticed was putting a post and wasn't charging enough. And vou know, luckily I was really pleased to see lots of the women saying, come on love, you're not charging enough. Come on, value yourself! You know, we all, male and female, everybody has imposter syndrome. And I think, you know, I have imposter syndrome and I've been doing this two decades and I go and speak to somebody. I've been asked to go and do a workshop on how to prune black currant, no idea how to prune blackcurrants properly. I'm just going to have to go onto Google and look it up, because you're always learning, because you become focused on design and then you forget other things. I shouldn't have a bit of that should I? So yeah, imposter syndrome kicks in. But as you say, I don't know. I don't know if it is a female thing. I don't know if men don't value themselves, but I think you know, there seems to be a certain confidence with men that they think they're worth it, or they know they're worth it.

And they are, as are women, I think women think that we're weaker physically. Possibly we may be, although I've met some women that are twice as strong as other men. I don't know. I don't know where it comes from. Yeah. And so, you know, I started a mentoring service last year, and that's always front and centre of what I tell them is just charge more. Or if you've got too much work, you've got too much work because you're not charging. And, if you're struggling to keep up with your clients, it's because you're too cheap.

Kate: Wonderful. Thank you. So leading on from that, as I said, I'm part of the group and I've been following the recent campaign on the difficulties women have been finding decent workwear. And I’m a short woman, short and proud, been working in the industry for 25 years, started out as a parks gardener, and I've certainly experienced real difficulties getting things to fit or be comfortable at all.So what what led you to start this campaign?

Charlotte: It’s interesting actually. I've just it's actually a campaign that I've revitalised. I actually started it back in 2019. I think it's when I was in the old house because the videos are there. So it was basically, I was putting on weight, gaining weight with the menopause and finding clothes increasingly hard. I never had comfortable clothes, actually. I always had to, because I had a small waist and curvy hips, you know, I had an hourglass figure when I was slim. So I had a small waist and curvy hips and a big bottom. So in order to find things that fitted my hips, I had to go with things with a big waist. So I was always, you know, working with bunched up trousers and I'm five foot two and, tiny. So none of the trouser legs fit my tiny legs. So yeah. And then I was just bending down and being really uncomfortable. And then I was like, I’ve put up with this for all this blooming time!!! This is ridiculous. Why can't I go out and buy a pair of trousers that fit me? You know, I can go to a shop and find, you know, a good plus size range. So I'm a size 22 on my bottom half, I will say, why do we do size 22s? What does that mean? You know, if you're a man, you go and buy a 32 waist 32 leg. We don't have that in women's wear. We have this nebulous sizing range that was based on a woman in the 1950s who had a completely different shaped body than… Because nowadays we don't have hourglass figures. Women are much straighter because of the diet, because the exercise. And so, you know, all our sizing is based on a house model. And as you know, you go to one shop the size 12 is much smaller than another. And they do that on purpose. So, you know, we have this against us in normal clothes, let alone workwear.

And so what prompted me to revitalise my workwear campaign was, a particular company who, had done a campaign in the summer with thin non gardening models, and I called them out on it and they said, oh no, no, we're going to do something with real gardeners. Actually, we're going to do a competition. And this lovely competition happened and I got very excited and they said wait until the winter campaign and see what happens. So the winter campaign came out a couple of weeks ago and it was exactly the same house models. So it's like, what happened to all of that then? So I just got quite annoyed and did a post and oh, bless the poor lad that's just taken over the social media. He must have been like, “oh God, I'm dead. I'm gonna lose my job before I've even started it”. So I don't want to have a go at him because he's only been there five minutes. But I just put that post on there and goes can you believe it? I just put a photograph of these two gorgeous. I mean, they're lovely people. They're quite sort of, they’re very catalog models, aren't they. But she's a size ten and he's a big, beefy sort of outdoorsy man type, you know, with a stomach like an ironing board, and most landscapers I know have a nice beer belly. So, and what I particularly found hilarious was they sent me a catalog which had the women's wear clothes section, and the photograph was a man, big, burly man, holding a bag of compost. And the woman was in the background, out of focus, pushing a lawnmower. Oh, I just thought, oh, God. So I just thought, I'll put it up. And then it just had loads of comments because it is one of the biggest discussion points after charging is where do I buy? Where can I buy good waterproofs? Where can I buy these? Where can I find the tools? Where can I find, hedge trimmers I can lift and all of those because even tools are hard. I remember I had to put cable ties on the handles of my hedge trimmers because my hands, my tiny little hands, little lady hands were too small to hold the whole thing of the hedge trimmer at once, which is really dangerous because I had to tie up the dead block. So if I drop that. Yeah, because it's impossible to hold everything together.

Kate: Yeah, but for a lot of women, even reaching the deadlock can be really hard. When I'm like, you, teeny tiny hands. And a lot of women suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome as well. More female gardeners get that because of the tools being that bit bigger, not designed for women. One of my bug bears I will say, is that there is some lovely gardening workwear out there for women, but it's just so expensive.

Charlotte: Yes. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the women in the group are single parents. They're single income families because often they've had to come into this career because gardening is a wonderful career to fit around childcare, because it's the one that you can do the school run dairy at ten, dental two and then pick up the kids.

And there is it is a lovely career to fit around it, but also it’s not a great career to be dressed in. So yeah, a lot of these women, we're on crap pay because we're not asking enough so we don't have 189 pounds. You know, some of us struggle to put fuel in our vehicles and feed our kids, let alone spend that kind of money on a pair of trousers.[Text Wrapping Break]

Kate: Whereas you can go into Dickies as a man and get, you know, a good… because it's the toughness that you want and it's great buying a pair of chinos from a woman's clothing shop. But you want something that's going to last, not going to rip every time you bend down or rip you know, on a prickly shrub. So that that's what what we need to.

Charlotte: You also want to look professional because quite a lot of women in the group said, oh, well, I've managed to get around this because I get my stuff from charity shops, or I've got these yoga trousers or I wear leggings and I have, you know, my husband shirt and I have the leggings and I have this and, but then you end up looking like a bag lady. And so you turn up to work in this mishmash of clothes. I mean, I always look like I look I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, literally. Because, yeah, you know, why can't we have professional, affordable, ethical clothing?

Kate: Is there… What do you think the industry, you know, can do? What what what would you like to see from the industry in response to this?

Charlotte: Well I'd like the industry to listen to us. I think now that we have this amazing, big, strong group, I think it would be. I want to, I've been talking about it quite a lot on LinkedIn, actually, and a couple of the industries that people have reached out to me. So I think I'd like them to work with our group. Really. They've got a, you know, a product testing cases of 3000 women of all shapes and sizes, tall or short, fat, thin, whatever, disabilities, pregnant and all pregnant, all of those, these things. Yes. Because that's another thing. Our bellies fluctuate depending on the time of month, all of those things. So I'd like them to just listen to us and say, okay, we are listening.

Here are some products. Come out, test them, come back to us, give us some feedback. All of that. And I know it's hard. I spoke to Aardvark, who have one of the good, good brands and they desperately want to do plus size clothes, but they can't do it because of Brexit. The companies that they used to use, they can't work with and there's no factories over here. So, you know, I worked in fashion. I know how hard it is. That's why I know how hard it is to turn these things around. The cogs, so you know it. I don't really have a silver bullet answer. We need to create the demand and also for them to fulfill the demand. I guess. And it is expensive to have bespoke. But as I said, it seems to be possible for men to be able to choose trousers with waist and leg lengths. Well, why can't we?

Kate: Brilliant. Thank you so much for that.

Phil: I think that's absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Charlotte: Thank you for the time.

Phil: It’s been really good. I absolutely loved, hearing about the work you're doing with women in horticulture. And I think you're absolutely right what you're saying about women valuing themselves and valuing, the time. I think that's really important. I think it's a confidence thing. I think as much as anything. So I think that's really important. What you're doing there and saying to people, I think that's really, really good.

Charlotte: Smash the patriarchy! Ha ha