The landscape designer on the art of winning arguments, cycling to China, changing people’s preconceptions and refusing to be pigeonholed.
In an era obsessed with categorisation, John Wyer declines to be pigeonholed. He is an accomplished designer, writer, artist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, a keen cyclist, voracious reader and obsessive home cook.
But, because the company he established 30 years ago also builds gardens, he tends to be labelled as a landscaper. “I think that is true, at least outside the industry,” he says, “but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve never really conformed to a type.”
Growing up in south London as the middle child of five, this tendency mainly took the form of arguing. “In fact, our whole family was known for it. Dinnertimes could get quite lively. We would argue about everything, from politics to religion, to who was going to borrow the car. I was brought up to question the world.”
“I was brought up to question the world.”
At school, his endless questions were not always welcomed by teachers trying to herd their pupils towards academic success. “I spent a good ten years not doing what I was told, and as a result failed every exam I took during that period.” Instead of taking notes, he spent lessons sketching plans for landscapes. “Architecture, vistas and revealed views always interested me – the relationship between experienced landscape and geometry. I love geometry… For me it’s a way of seeing and structuring the world.”
Thanks to an unusually enlightened school careers advisor, he was guided towards a degree in landscape architecture. “I didn’t even know it was a career option, but I applied for four different courses and, despite not having the grades, I got offers from all four on the strength of my interviews.”
He chose Manchester Metropolitan University, where he continued to argue and continued to fail every exam. “My supervisor said I was the best student in the year and begged me to stop debating and do some actual work.” Needless to say, he didn’t, but he did spend his year out de facto running the landscape department at Lancaster City Council when the two permanent staff both went on maternity leave, and, following a (failed) post-grad diploma, walked into a job in the prestigious design department at Clifton Nurseries.
“My supervisor said I was the best student in the year and begged me to stop debating and do some actual work.”
This famously upmarket and expensive west London nursery was in some ways an unlikely fit for a politically left-leaning nonconformist, but John loved it. “Within a couple of years I was doing my own designs for some really big names.” Freddie Mercury was so delighted with his garden makeover that he gave John a crystal decanter engraved with the words: ‘To dearest Johnny, Love Freddie’.
At which point, John decided to cycle to China on a bike he had built for himself. He set off from Westminster Bridge with his wife-to-be Vicky, also a landscape architect. The trip took 11 months and along the way he got arrested for arguing with the Chinese police, but the experience changed him for the better. “I left London as a young man who felt he had failed at everything but, having succeeded with that epic trip, I finally gained a confidence in my ability to see things through.”
“I finally gained a confidence in my ability to see things through.”
He returned to Clifton for five more years, eventually heading the design department while his friend Chris Bowles ran the construction department, and the pair gradually hatched a plan to set up in business for themselves. Of course, John wasn’t ever going to do this the easy way. “I took the plunge in 1992, when Vicky and I were expecting our first baby and the country was in recession. As a point of honour I never took a single client from Clifton, but work started coming in almost immediately.”
John and Chris quickly gained a reputation for designing, constructing and maintaining gardens to the very highest level, and their business grew steadily. “But there came a point where Chris and I had a separation of thinking. Things got quite explosive and the situation was making me really unhappy, so we eventually agreed that Chris would retire while I took the business forward.”
John continued to ask awkward questions, mainly of himself. “I was looking to do things better and, as our team grew, I wanted to look after them better as well. Business is fundamentally about people, not profit and loss. We’ve got a team of around 50 now, and many of them have stayed for decades, so I guess we are doing something right.” The gardens John and his team produce are equally successful, winning shelves full of awards both for their design and their polished execution.
Unusually, Bowles & Wyer build for other high-profile designers as well. “It shouldn’t work, like a bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly,” he says, “but they know we would never poach their clients.” The fact is that while building his own company, John has also earned huge respect within the industry. He lectures, mentors and writes on the subject, and volunteers a huge amount of time to working with various professional associations. “I love this business. If you get it right, landscape affects you on an emotional level, in the same way that music and food do, and that still excites me. Really, I suppose I want to change how people experience the world.”
USEFUL INFORMATION Find out more about John Wyer’s work at bowleswyer.co.uk