Te Awamutu boy Jamie Frost wins Yates Budding Young Gardener of the Year

Ten-year-old Jamie Frost is now an ambassador for Yates. Photo / Supplied

Te Awamutu's 10-year-old Jamie Frost's passion and skill for gardening has seen him take out the Yates Budding Young Gardener of the Year title.

Last week, during National Gardening Week, Jamie found out he had become the grand winner in the Yates Budding Young Gardener competition after earlier in the month being named one of the six regional finalists and winning the Central North Island title.

With the win, Jamie now gets to call himself an ambassador for the garden products brand Yates for a year as well as scoring himself and his family a holiday to Hawaii.

Jamie's mother, Liz, says the family is yet to figure out when they'll be taking that holiday.
"We were all completely blown away by the wonderful win, we've really only just come back down to earth after the exciting week we've had," said Liz.

Liz is now due to meet with a marketing manager from Yates to find out what Jamie's ambassador role consist of.

Jamie's love of gardening started when he was just 3 years old with much of his inspiration stemming from his grandmother, Diana Shaw.

In fact it was his grandmother's garden that he got stuck right into with his family over Labour Day long weekend after learning of his win.

The judges were won over by Jamie's generosity of spirit.

His grandmother would often go around to his house to help him in the garden but since she had a heart attack three years ago he has been making the trip to Hamilton to help her in her garden.

"So she has enough food to eat and doesn't have to go to the supermarket as she can no longer drive," said Jamie.

For nine years now Jamie has also entered Hamilton's Great Pumpkin Carnival growing competition, securing great scores each year with creations such as caterpillars, cats, eyeballs and even a sun-bathing ninja.

Fortunately for Jamie he also enjoys eating and cooking with pumpkin so much so that he has also entered into the pumpkin baking competition.

His favourite pumpkin recipes are pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pie.