John, the proprietor, began his horticultural career in 1982 working on an eighty-acre estate in the heart of Maidenhead thicket, tending the grounds, growing plants in a small nursery on the site and harvesting the vegetables every morning for use in the estate kitchens.
In 1984 he attended Pershore College of Horticulture, near Worcester, to complete a three-year Diploma in Horticulture, continuing to work on the estate in his spare time and during holidays.
At the end of the three years, he spent some time working in Pistoia, Italy at Innocenti & Mangoni Piante, a two hundred acre nursery where he learned to tend for mature plants and underwent a masterclass in topiary, both specialities of the region.
Upon his return to the UK, he spent some time in Hungerford before moving to Windsor in 1989 and establishing his own landscape business offering quality garden care, something he is still doing today.