A Root of One's Own

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, in honour of International Women’s Day, we’re giving space to a few of the women who’ve found meaning and fulfilment in the gardens they’ve created. We’re exploring the power that exists in our own connection with the rich environments we inhabit, and the myriad of ways we can care for and cultivate it. Writer and gardener Alice Vincent opens up about her quest to find out why exactly women grow, RHS edible grower Suzie Kelly shares her top tips for growing her favourite vegetable (tomatoes!), and author Victoria Bennett gives us an honest look at the apothecary garden she built in the midst of deep grief. Links: Why Women Grow Why Women Grow Podcast All My Wild Mothers Tomatoes – growing your own Fast tomatoes – the quickest way to grow your own

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get your tickets for the greatest show in Earth at an RHS garden near you.
0:05.1	Where nature puts on an unforgettable performance of colour and fragrance.
0:09.3	The scenery changes many times in one season and our finest trees will happily play the part of...
0:14.7	The best hiding place ever.
0:17.4	Booth!
0:18.2	Put your day out of dreams in the hands of the experts.
0:21.6	It's the greatest show in Earth, at an RHS garden near you.
0:25.5	Book tickets online for discounts, plus under fives go free and under 16 to five pounds.
0:32.7	So about three years ago, I was in the Lindley Library, looking at documents, as is my way,
0:39.6	and I came across an intriguing letter from the late 1800s from somebody called O'Harrison,
0:45.7	complaining to the RHS that they'd come top in the RHS's National Horticultural Exam.
0:51.5	Could they have their scholarship, please?
0:53.8	Which is what the RHS offered people who came topping the exam.
0:58.2	And underneath that letter was a rather snotty reply from Reverend Wilkes,
1:01.9	who was the secretary of the RHS at the time saying,
1:04.4	nope, you're a woman, you can't have a scholarship because the scholarship's not intended for women.
1:09.2	We only train men at our garden at Chiswick.
1:12.3	And then O'Harrison, whose name was actually Olive, writes back and says, it says nothing in the
1:17.0	rules about that. Please, can I have my scholarship? And digging underneath, I found a reply from
1:24.0	Reverend Wilkes saying, it was never anticipated that a woman would try. That was why it wasn't
1:29.7	in the rules. Now I got quite intrigued by this little exchange and wanted to find out was Oliver
1:36.1	alone? Was she the only woman who took the exam? Was she the only woman who wanted to train as a
	...

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