That’s Kew Gardens’ student, Alex Summers, the winner of 2009’s Young Horticulturist of the Year competition. At last week’s final, held on the 9th May at the National Botanical Garden of Wales, Alex, pictured centre, triumphed over his 7 fellow competitors with part-time grower and Writtle College student James Hearsum, pictured right, second and Madingley Hall Head Gardener Faye Steer, pictured left, in third place.

The result was also something of a feather in the cap for Cambridge University as all three had previously worked together at the University’s Botanic Garden.

Alex’s prize for coming out top of over 1500 entrants in this year’s competition is a £2000 travel bursary, donated by the Percy Thrower Trust.  He now plans to use his winnings to fund a trip to his ‘trip of a lifetime’ into deepest Borneo in order to study ‘parasitic’ plants. Nice!

As usual MorePeople were delighted to work with Sue Nicholas and the YHoY organising committee in sponsoring the numerous local heats that took place across the UK & Ireland earlier this year and we congratulate Alex on his impressive victory. 

We’ve just got one piece of advice for Alex when he gets to Borneo, just keep an eye out for the local ‘head hunters’  - we don’t think they’re quite as friendly as us here at MorePeople!