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

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

Margaret Howell has been designing men’s and womenswear for five decades, prioritising understated quality over trends: she makes beautiful clothes that work well. Fifty years after she started to design and sell clothes from her home in Blackheath, South London, there are now 80 Margaret Howell stores across the globe, from Paris to Tokyo, and she has been appointed a CBE for services to the retail industry. Margaret has been inspired by the natural world since childhood, citing the impact...

One simple concept, a million cookbooks sold: Rukmini Iyer’s Roasting Tin recipe books have transformed dinner times around the country. But the writer and food stylist is also a keen amateur gardener, growing first on a balcony and, later, in a garden on a quiet street in leafy South London. Iyer’s adventures in growing food to eat collided with the arrival of her first child, and gardening has given her a new perspective on what it is to feed and nourish. We catch up with the author of...

Sally Vickers is a Jungian psychotherapist and the author of books such as Miss Garnet's Angel, The Other Side of You and, most recently, The Gardener. The daughter of two communists, Salley was a teacher before she retrained as a psychotherapist, and her writing delves into the stuff that makes us human. She is also a keen gardener, especially at her country home in Wiltshire. In the midst of the downpours that broke England’s heatwave last summer, we met Salley at Kew Gardens, a place that...

If you’ve ever bought plants or seeds online, or through mail order, you’ve probably encountered Sarah Raven. The gardener, writer and teacher is also a nursery-owner and businesswoman, developing, trialling and selling plants to Britain’s home gardeners. Over the course of three decades and seven books, including A Year Full of Flowers, Sarah has changed how British gardens grow, ushering bold colours and flavourful fruit and veg into our homes and kitchens. Today we’re heading to her home...

Claire Ratinon is a food-grower, speaker and writer. In 2022, she released Unearthed, a powerful memoir about understanding what it is to become a custodian of the earth as a Black woman, and how the process of doing so helped her gain a sense of belonging in a post-colonial country. In 2012 Claire was working as a documentary producer in New York when she stumbled upon Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm in the middle of the city. Having always felt alienated from nature, she embarked upon a...

Poppy Okotcha describes herself as an ecological home grower working to inspire reconnection to the land and the living world through the story of food and herbs. She came to gardening after a shift in her personal life: having moved between the UK and South Africa during her childhood, Poppy had a career as a model. When she was left burnt out by the fashion industry, she began to cultivate a slower kind of life, growing organically on top of a canal boat in London and learning about...

Introducing the line-up for the first season of Why Women Grow: writer Claire Ratinon designer Margaret Howell chef Rukmini Iyer gardening gamechanger Sarah Raven novelist Salley Vickers environmentalist Poppy Okotcha and stylist and influencer Paula Sutton We talk about everything, from motherhood, to gardening for a better planet and finding your place in the world.  The first season kicks off on February 13, with episodes from the gardens and brains of Claire Ratinon and Sarah Raven....

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