Flora and Fauna Gloves: women's gardening gloves with a botanical songbird and foliage print, cushioned palm, and gathered wrist

A gardening glove that doubles as a small piece of botanical art

Most gardening gloves are bought purely for function. The Flora and Fauna Gloves are built to work properly at the plot, but they carry a design worth looking at twice, which puts them in a smaller category: practical enough for real use, pretty enough to give as a proper gift.

Where the design comes from

The print is part of Burgon & Ball's RHS Gifts for Gardeners collection, and rather than a generic bird-and-leaf motif, it's drawn from genuine historic sources. The illustrations include elegant Chinese watercolours and hand-coloured engravings dating from 1819 to 1912, specially selected from the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Collections. The dainty songbirds and delicate foliage that make up the pattern come from nearly a century of botanical and natural history illustration, giving the design a depth that a modern reprint wouldn't have.

Cushioned palm for comfort and protection

Underneath the decorative print, the palm is genuinely built for the job. A cushioned palm gives comfort and protection during everyday garden tasks, softening the repeated contact that comes with gripping tools, handling pots, and general digging and planting, without the glove feeling bulky or stiff.

A gathered wrist that actually keeps debris out

The cuff uses a gathered wrist design, which closes snugly around the wrist without needing an elasticated band or a separate cuff piece. That gather is what keeps soil, grit, and general garden debris from working their way in while you're weeding or turning compost, the same practical function as an elasticated cuff, achieved here with a softer, more fitted construction.

Soft to wear, tough enough to last

Burgon & Ball describe these as soft to wear but very tough and hardwearing, and the construction backs that up. The palm is a blend of 60% polyurethane and 40% polyester, giving a soft-touch surface with genuine durability, while the printed fabric back is 95% polyester and 5% elastane, adding a degree of stretch that helps the glove move with your hand rather than resisting it.

Machine washable at 30°C

Unlike a lot of decorative or printed gardening gloves, which often demand careful hand cleaning to protect the print, these are machine washable at 30°C. That's a genuinely useful detail for a glove that's going to see real garden use rather than sit as an ornament, meaning the print and the practical function don't have to be traded off against each other.

Sizing: 8.5 (21.5cm), and what that means

This pair is sized 8.5, corresponding to a glove length of 21.5cm from the tip of the middle finger to the edge of the cuff, with a degree of stretch built into the printed fabric to help it adapt across a range of hand sizes. Burgon & Ball describe it as one size fits (almost) all rather than a genuine universal fit, so if you know you have a notably smaller or larger hand than this measurement suggests, it's worth bearing in mind before buying, particularly as a gift.

Where these gloves earn their keep

This is a glove for general, everyday garden tasks: weeding, planting, deadheading, potting on, and the general tidying that makes up most of a gardening session. The cushioned palm and gathered wrist mean it holds its own for genuine use, not just for show, while the historic songbird and foliage print and RHS provenance make it a natural choice as a gift for a gardener who'd appreciate something a little more considered than a plain, functional pair.

The fourchette detail

The fourchettes, the strips of material between the fingers that give a glove its shape and flexibility, are made from a 90% polyester, 10% elastane blend, a slightly higher stretch content than the back of the glove. This is a small but deliberate construction choice, since the fourchettes need to flex more than any other part of the glove every time you open and close your hand.

Looking after your gloves

Beyond the 30°C machine wash, it's worth letting the gloves air dry naturally rather than tumble drying them, to help the printed fabric and the stretch elastane content stay in good condition for longer. Avoiding a hot wash also helps protect the print's colour and detail over repeated cleaning.

A thoughtful gift, not just a novelty print

It would be easy for a botanically printed gardening glove to be all image and no substance, but the cushioned palm, gathered wrist, and genuine wash-and-wear practicality here mean it holds up as a real gardening glove first, with the historic songbird and foliage design as a proper bonus rather than the only selling point.