Jake Linklater was named the Young Plant Producer of the Year and will compete in the highly-regarded Young Horticulturist of the Year competition later this year.

What skills are nurtured, and what are second nature? For Jake Linklater, you need to nurture nature. That is why he loves working as a plant grower.

The 29-year-old Cantabrian knows from experience that you need to learn to love plants.

“I don’t think people are born passionate. But I don’t think I’ve ever met an owner of a nursery business that isn’t passionate about what they do, which is pretty cool,” he enthuses.

“There’s a lot of good characters within the nursery industry that are willing to share knowledge and share their experiences. It’s just got a real addictive nature to it, and I love the variety and different avenues you can take.”

Jake was named the Young Plant Producer of the Year and will compete in the highly-regarded Young Horticulturist of the Year competition later this year.

Like other finalists in the competition, this wasn’t initially going to be their career path. Jake left school in Year 13 without a goal, and got a job in an aluminium factory.

“Looking back it gave me a good work ethic, and a sense of what a good workplace should look like,” he says. “I always wanted a job outside. So that’s when I looked at arboriculture.”

He got a job at Treescape, and then transitioned into landscaping.

“Every time I visited a nursery, I thought, ‘Oh, man, that’d be such a cool job, growing plants and getting them up to that stage of selling them before they go out’.”

Just over five years ago he was able to fulfil his dream, and started at Southern Woods in the dispatch and logistics department and has gone on to become Nova Natives nursery manager at Nova Trust.

“You learn all the species’ names, how all the departments work in conjunction with each other. I moved into production and learned all the cycles – propagation, crop care, production, irrigation and maintenance. Working in production, I knew this was what I wanted to do, and I felt like I was better at it than I was at landscaping. “

He loves the variety and that there is always something to learn – and is studying a BSC in ecology part-time at Lincoln University.

“I’d like to get into plant breeding and plant selection,” the hebe enthusiast says. “It’s an art form. There’s not many new New Zealand native plant breeders coming through, so I’d like to dabble in that and see where I can take it. I want to get to a stage where I’m mentoring a few younger ones.”

Right now his junior apprentice is his daughter, Ivy, five, who loves to “help” as he transforms his own garden.

“When I get a spade out, she’s really excited, and she just gets her hands and knees all dirty,” Jake says. “And then when I get the loppers out, she’s even more excited. And then I have to watch her quite closely.”

He and his partner – who have just welcomed their second child, who they have also given a plant-theme name, Violet – have been transforming their garden, swapping out old English style planting to all natives and a few different cultivars. The back garden now has fruit trees – peaches, apples and nectarine – and the shady side will soon boast a fernery.

“There is a lot of envisioning going on. And patience, lots of patience, definitely, especially at this time of year where everything’s foggy and wet, nothing’s growing.”

And in those rare moments of spare time, Jake is still living and breathing plants.

“I like to botanise if I’m out tramping, there’s a lot of quite rare and endangered plants you come across in the wild.”

About The Young Horticulturist of the Year

The Young Horticulturist of the Year (YHOTY) is an intensive two-day competition for talented young professionals from a range of horticultural sectors.  Run by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture Education Trust, the YHOTY was launched in 2005 and culminates in choosing a supreme winner at a prestigious annual awards.

There are six finalists vying for the supreme title and a prize pool worth more than $50,000 at the grand final, held in Karaka, Auckland on November 5 and 6.

The sectors are:

• Young Grower of the Year (Horticulture New Zealand Fruit & Vegetable Sectors)
• Young Amenity Horticulturist (New Zealand Recreation Association)
• Young Viticulturist of the Year (New Zealand Winegrowers)
• New Arborist (New Zealand Arboriculture Association Inc)
• Young Florist/Flower Grower (FLONZI Florists and Flower Growers NZ Incorporated)
• Young Plant Producer of the Year (New Zealand Plant Producers Incorporated)

The competition’s valued Official Partners are Woolworths, Fruitfed Supplies and T&G Fresh. Young Horticulturist of the Year celebrates 20 years in 2025 and is managed by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture Education Trust.

For tickets to the awards dinner on Thursday, November 6, 2025 and further information go to younghort.co.nz

About the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture Education Trust

The Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture Education Trust is a volunteer group of industry professionals passionate about investing in future sector talent, through developing leadership and self-development capability.