IPPS New Zealand Committee Profile

Jill Reader

As far as horticulture is concerned, I was a late bloomer. Dad was an accountant, mum was a housewife, and I wanted to join the police force or army. And so I did have a brief career in the military police, married a soldier, started a family, and then bought a house. It was only when faced with a newly acquired house on a quarter acre section that I started to think of plants at all. I didn’t know a forsythia from a petunia, so I joined the local library and read my way through their gardening section.

Somewhere amongst all the reading, horticulture started to seem like a good career. And so followed a Dip. Hort., a Dip. Field Tech., and then a job as head propagator for Rob Burrows at Trents Nurseries.

Following Trents was a 13 year stint managing the GMO glasshouse at Crop and Food Research, during which time I spent another 4 years studying part-time at Lincoln. Unfortunately a restructuring of the area I worked in left me facing redundancy.

Six months working at Allenton’s (during which I became Jill Weeder), and 18 months at Southwell Plants brought me back to good basic nursery work – far removed from genetic engineering and the moral and ethical issues involved. About the time this goes to print I am about to embark on a new phase of my career as a horticulture tutor at Telford Rural Polytechnic. Very exciting, and I’m really looking forward to sharing my love of plants with young people.

I’ve been a member of IPPS since the mid 1990’s. It has been a great experience so far, and I am pleased that as editor and a member of the executive I can now give back something to the society from which I have gained so much.

April 2009