Diary of a Lady Gardener

My name is Shannon, or Shan and I set up the @diaryofaladygardener Instagram in January 2019 after being given an allotment as a Christmas present.

While you're all thinking 'what a wonderful gift', and I do completely agree with you now, but back then, this was somewhat out of the blue and I didn't have CLUE about growing things. It was a very thoughtful gift but I never thought it would catch on. See I was a bit of a serial hobbiest, all the gear and no idea but had a different interest on a weekly basis with the ambition to give it my all. I was also the kind of person that would say I couldn't keep anything alive, I wasn't greenfingered and I had no idea that potatoes were grown from, well, other potatoes...

But, when my first day on the plot came I got stuck right in. Within a few months I had some shiny new Instagram pals to follow and chat veg with and I quite quickly became obsessed. Yes, most people did laugh at me when I told them I was off to my new allotment every weekend, or when I continued to talk about nothing by my seedlings and gardening adventures. At the age of 22, it wasn't very 'cool' to be into gardening, and most people laughed and asked when I'd be retiring (until I suddenly had 10K followers and the pandemic meant EVERYONE thought gardening was cool that is).

Flash forward to 2021 and I launched a podcast and got started on making horticulture a career! This peaked when I had a community allotment at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in 2022 which you can see a sneek preview of below!

 

 

Now I'm a the very proud Co-Founder of The Gardeners Co. CIC, a not-for-profit organisation based in North Devon with an aim to get more people growing from 18 months onwards, and you can find out more about what we do now here! My absolute favourite part of running this little business is hosting The Lady Gardeners' Club each month, a real passion project of mine designed to inspire confidence in women and show them that they really can do anything. Fancy joining us this month? Book your spot here!

Alongside running The Gardeners Co. CIC I'm also training to be a garden designer (if you want to be the first to hear when I'm qualified and accepting clients, sign up to our newsletter), and I'm a freelance marketing consultant specialising in SEO and strategy. Feel free to drop me an email if you think I might be able to help you with any of the above, or book a slot in person/virtually through my calendar - just be sure to add a note with what you'd like to talk about so that I can prepare accordingly.