Collection: Womanswork

Womanswork Gardening Gloves and Garden Gear for Women

The season usually starts in the pair hanging by the register at the hardware store: one shape, cut down from a man's pattern, sold as one-size-fits-most. The fingertips bunch, so the feel of a seedling stem disappears. The cuff stops at the wrist, so the first handful of soil goes straight down the inside. By August the palm has worn through and the pair goes in the bin. Womanswork gloves are patterned and sized for women's hands, and the range splits by job — light weeding, digging, reaching into thorns — so the pair that fits is also the right tool.

Four gloves, four jobs

For weeding, potting and seed starting, the Lightweight Nitrile Gardening & Weeding Gloves are the thinnest pair here and enough glove. A waterproof nitrile coating on the palms and fingertips keeps hands dry and clean, the uncoated back breathes, and the fit stays thin enough for a natural finger feel on tools and small stems. Womanswork says plainly what these are not for: heavy thorn protection or industrial work.

Digging and bed maintenance chew through that kind of glove, which is where the Reinforced "Digger" Gardening Gloves come in. The fingertips are reinforced where gardeners wear through first, the micro suede palms are padded for long sessions on a trowel handle, and a longer cuff with an adjustable velcro closure shuts the wrist against soil. There is a terry brow wipe sewn onto the thumb, a detail you only appreciate in July. Solid colors plus the Garden of Paradise print.

When the scratches start arriving above the wrist — raspberry canes, shrub roses, anything you have to reach inside of — the Botanical Print Gardening Arm Saver Gloves take over. Extra-long cuffs cover the forearm against scratches, insect bites and sun. The palms are synthetic leather with the thumb and pointer finger reinforced, and a stretchy pull cord at the top of the cuff cinches it so soil stays outside. Lightweight cotton twill with a touch of spandex, machine washable, in five prints: Woodland Garden, Heirloom Garden, Garden of Paradise, White Dahlia and Dark Dahlia.

Real thorn work calls for the All Leather Arm Saver Gauntlet Glove — top-grain pigskin with a suede finish and a full gauntlet cuff, made in the USA. Leather never goes in the machine: wipe it with a damp sponge and let it air dry. It softens to the shape of your hand over a season.

Aprons, caddies and hand care

The Gardener's Half Apron is cotton twill with two large front pockets and wraparound ties long enough to knot in front, in the same five prints. The Gardening Tool Bucket Caddy hangs on the outside of any standard 5-gallon bucket and adds twelve pockets for hand tools, gloves and seed packets. You supply the bucket, which is half the point: it becomes what you drop weeds and cut flowers into.

Then there is the Gardener's Hand Soap: a 6.4 oz vegetable-based bar built on shea butter, cocoa butter, olive oil and aloe butter, with apricot seed and wheat bran doing the scrubbing. Wrapped in the Garden of Paradise print, it works as a gift as easily as it works at the potting sink.

Sizes, prints and care

The three fabric glove styles run Small, Medium and Large. The leather gauntlet is listed up to XL, but its smaller sizes come and go, so check that listing before you order. The Botanical Print Arm Saver listing carries a sizing guide photo with measurements and how to measure. Prints are artist-designed and repeat across gloves, apron and soap wrapper, so a matched set is easy. The fabric gloves and the apron are machine washable; the heavier glove listings specify cold water, like colors, air dry, no bleach.