John plants seeds for garden venture (From Gazette & Herald)

John plants seeds for garden venture

Financial adviser John Plant has literally gone back to his roots - as a qualified landscape gardener.

John, of Skewsby, near Castle Howard, is still in financial services, as manager for a small York financial practice, where three or four days in the week he helps people to grow their money.

But the rest of the time he spends on his new venture, John Plant Design & Construction, growing other people's gardens.

He said: "It's nice to get back to getting my hands dirty. I'm bracing myself to cater for the garden needs of up to 20 clients over the next 12 months.

"Already I've had a few jibes about my name, but they have not come from my partner who, aptly, is called Daphne, nor my mother, whose maiden name was Hill, nor my Aunt Rose!''

He will specialise in landscaping, design and construction and cater for "all tastes and all sizes", he said.

John trained as a gardener at Rease Heath agricultural College in Nantwich, Cheshire for two years up to 1970 then took a year's training course in tree surgery at Merrist Wood, Guildford, Surrey, to which he returned two years later for a landscape design course, emerging with top honours.

He first became involved in financial services when a friend who was a financial adviser in Peterborough asked for his marketing skills. Together, they set up a financial services firm specialising in mortgages. Eighteen months later, he moved to Swindon and set up on his own. He moved to offices in Clifton Moor York in 1997, and has been there ever since, selling insurance and mortgages.

Updated: 15:04 Wednesday, October 05, 2005