The best gardening Footwear

What are the best boots for gardening?

Are you like me and can’t stand scrolling through pages of waffle before the author of a post finally tells you the answer to your question? Me too. So, in my opinion, the best gardening footwear are the Telluride Zip H2O boots by Ariat. Also in opinion – the second best type of boots for all day gardening are the Eskdale H2O, also by Ariat. Both model of boots are tough, comfortable for all day wear and stylish enough to wear to the shops. If you would like to know why I think this read on 🙂

Side note: this is not a sponsored post, I wrote this post simply to help other keen gardeners to find the best footwear for long days in their veggie patches – especially as my mind was blown (with happiness!) when I discovered Ariat boots were so fabulous for my gardening needs! Though if Ariat wants to sponsor me for a gardening range in the future I’m here, willing and said it here first lol. Anyway, to my story…..

Gardening boots need to be waterproof, or at least very water resistant, tough and comfortable. I have gardened since I can remember and have worn many kinds of footwear for gardening: gumboots (rain boots), old runners, laced up hiking style boots, leather lace up steel toe reinforced, loafer style top branded hiking shoes with so-called non-slip soles…. the list goes on. The brands and models were mostly the ‘usual’ recommended list of gardening footwear, I won’t list them here, as I don’t want to be negative about other brands – I’m sure they worked for others, they just didn’t work for me.

None really fitted the bill 100%, and often the soles of my feet would get sore and ache by the end of the day, the footwear would rub at my ankle area. Or dirt and water would get into the boot, either through the opening of the ankle, or the non-gusseted tongue of the boot. I adore gardening and don’t mind getting right down into the muck all day, but I still loathe getting dirt, bark, mulch and other crud in my boots. Can’t. stand. it.

So I thought long and hard about the type of boot that would be bets for gardening:

• Leather – because it’s flexible to kneel in and allows movement around my ankles. Leather is very water resistant, verging on waterproof for a good length of time before the leather gets saturated.
• Grippy, yet light weight soles – thus all terrain, but not chunky and bulky like a hefty workman’s boot – that would make the boots too heavy, and I wanted something lightweight for all day comfortable wear.
• Gusseted tongue to stop crud getting into my footwear
• Not too hot for summer and warm in winter? This feature I might have to let slide, considering summers here one often gets days of 25 – 35 C (77 – 95 F), sometimes even 45C (113F, not that I would be gardening if it was a 45C day!) – so my feet are always going to be hot when gardening in summer, no matter what boots I wear.
• Would last for many, many years.

I searched online for all the reviews and recommendations for “the best gardening boots” or “the best footwear for gardening” and they all had the usual list of brands and types of gardening footwear…… So I thought more, what industry would need footwear that fit all my criteria…. Flexible around the ankle enabling agility, muck proof…. Ah ha! Horse riding!”

‘Horsey people’ know all about spending all day in good leather boots and often have to muck out stables and other grotty jobs.

So I went down to my local horse supply shop and had a look at their range of boots and also asked people I know who ride horses what boots they loved. This is where I discovered the horse riding apparel brand Ariat (horse riding people will be rolling their eyes at me here, but this brand was new to me, and definitely never mentioned as a contender in my gardening circles as recommended footwear!

The best gardening footwear for Fall (Autumn) and Winter

I tried on a few different models of Ariat boots and kept coming back to the Eskdale H2O. The other model of boot I loved was the Ariat Women’s Windermere II H2O. I really wanted the Ariat Windermere II H2O to be the winner, as I thought they looked so pretty – and their technical features (leather and waterproof) fit the bill, unfortunately they were just a bit too floppy around the calf (and I have wide calves!), they were more like tall gumboot (rain boot). I specifically didn’t want floppy boots, I wanted boots that fit like a glove around my calves to stop dirt, bark and other debris falling into my boots. I also find that boots that are floppy to wear might give me blisters, no matter how thick the socks I wear with them are.

The Eskdale’s were soooo comfortable and warm (it was winter when I bought them). I wore them every time I did gardening and moved 12 cubic meters of mulch and wood chips. The Eskdale H2Os had memory foam innersoles with good arch support, tough toe boxes for those occasional mishaps with a shovel, soles with good grip, nice spongy comfortable grippy opening that hugged my calves. I could even fit my podiatrist-made custom inner sole inside.

As the Eskdale H2O were long boots that came up to well above my calves, I could easily stand on piles of compost to load wheelbarrows full of compost, and even when I sank down into the steaming pile of wonderfully smelly compost a little ways, I never got any compost into the top of my boots. My feet were always warm throughout winter (0 – 7C (32 – 44F)) and the memory foam innersoles meant my feet never felt achy at the end of a long day of gardening.

The best gardening footwear for Spring and Summer.

I found the best gardening boot for Spring and Summer are the Telluride Zip H2O by Ariat. They are tough, have a gusseted tongue, zip up, have good grip, keep my feet dry, beautifully comfortable for all day wear in the gardening. I even take them on walking holidays.

As Spring and Summer rolled around, my Eskdale H2O were becoming a little hot to wear. As I loved my Ariat boots so much, I had no hesitation to head back to our local horse supply shop and try on an ankle style of Ariat boot, this time I kept coming back to the Telluride Zip H2O by Ariat. I also tried on the DuraTerrain Waterproof and the Woman’s Terrain Waterproof, but they were lace up and I found they constricted the movement around my ankles, which I suppose is good for some activities, but as one squats, bends and leans over for gardening I wanted more flexibility around my ankles.

The other awesome feature of the Telluride Zip H2O’s is that I can slip them on without doing up the zips, and they are still sturdy and not too floppy if I just want to, for example, nip out to the garden to quickly harvest some fresh veggies or herbs to cook for dinner, or take out the kitchen scraps to the compost bins. They are also brilliant to slip my feet into, and leave un-zipped to wander outside if I have a small child or harvest basket in one hand and a coffee in the other. Because goodness knows it’s a struggle to bend down to zip boots with arms full to head down to the veggie garden, and spilling a fresh cup of coffee on the way…. tragedy. Because you’ve been delayed to get to the vegetable garden, and now you also have no coffee!

Any cons to the Ariat boots?

The only downside I found was entirely my own fault. I found that because I was lazy to use the long shoe horn Ariat provided with the boots, the inner heel reinforcing thing had become floppy from my heel repeatedly sliding downwards on it when I put my boots on. So now I always have to use the shoe horn to get the boots on, or the heel reinforcing crumples up and is annoying underfoot. Live and learn, I shouldn’t have been lazy to use the shoe horn 🙁 !

Can you wash Ariat boots?

Whilst I am NOT recommending you do this, and I’m sure the Ariat company would also say do not do this, I did put my Eskdale H2O boots in my front loader washing machine. What?!?! I hear you say. I had left my boots outside for months on end and they ended up getting a nest of spiders inside them. In Australia that means quite possibly a poisonous spider has set up camp in your shoes….

So with trepidation I thought, “well, I’m not sticking my hand in them to find out if the spider family is still inside. I know! I’ll pop the boots in the washing machine on a super gentle cycle. If the boots survive then I can wear them again”. Not the wisest solution I’m sure, though I promised myself that from then on, I would take better care of my boots and keep them inside when they were not being worn for long periods of time.

The boots did indeed come out of the wash unscathed and super clean and are back in use – I was super happy and relieved that my washing experiment worked out well. So again, I am NOT recommending you wash your boots like this, keep them inside when not in use for a long time.

Are Ariat boots worth the investment?

Yes. Hands down. I know the price is not cheap, however, I found these boots to be a fantastic investment, they have already lasted me years and years without showing any sign of wear and tear (and I am not delicate with them, believe me!). And I foresee that they will last me many years to come.