John Newton

 

Mr. John Newton is a Creative Designer; Florist, Floral & Display Artist, Adult Teacher and Demonstrator; Special Events Coordinator; Photographer, Gardener and Web Master of www.daleharvey.com & www.4flowers.co.nz

Mr. John William Newton was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia. He became a successful Restaurateur and Chef for fourteen years. In 1981 John chose a bold career move and assumed a position as Assistant Manager and Head of Design for Toorak Jungle's, one of Melbourne's most prestigious retail nurseries under the direction of Dale Harvey. Toorak Jungles was designed to be an inspiration to Gardeners plus a commercial and education center to compliment and promote the Greening of Australia programme that was intent on botanically, culturally and environmentally uplifting Australia’s quality of life.

Within eighteen months of entering his new profession, John demonstrated his adaptability and skill as a Creative designer by winning the coveted Malvern Garden Award for Best Commercial Business Display, (1982) in Melbourne, Victoria, the "Garden State" of Australia. From small acorns great trees grow and today Australia is a far greener and more beautiful place thanks to the efforts of the Greening of Australia and the inspirational contributions of John Newton Design and Dale Harvey International.

In 1984 John was given the opportunity to redevelop an historic homestead in Auckland, New Zealand with his company partner, Dale Harvey International. The intent was to take the "greening" concept a step further and inspire Kiwi Gardeners to transform New Zealand into the "Garden Country" for employment, national identity, personal independence, quality of life, tourism and trade. The idea was to botanically renovate and transform the homestead using inexpensive and simple techniques that anyone could apply to produce a better quality of life by creating a backyard ‘Garden of Eden’. This monumental effort involved years of hard work including botanical experience and observation in Singapore and six months of training in the United States in 1988.
 
Over time the property became the inspirational community landmark known as the "Quarter Acre Paradise" Gardens and eventually became an international tourist attraction featuring on CNN World Report and NHK (Japan National Televison). The Gardens became the background and demonstration ‘home’ setting for the top-rating television series, "Living Earth" and then featured through hundreds of articles, photographs and stories promoted and published by Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) worldwide, especially through Woman’s Day Magazine.  Today the property has doubled in size and transformed beyond recognition with a series of conservatories and botanical shelters dividing the many different garden ‘rooms’.  
 
Inspired by his experiences in the U.S.A., John branched out into his own business, John Newton Design, which included the development of a remarkably successful Internet Floral Service called 4flowers. 4flowers is still operational today and provides high quality commercial and private floral services throughout New Zealand and worldwide. 4flowers has become a vital commercial component contributing to the newly established Government standards for the floral industry in New Zealand.

John Newton’s reputation as a high quality Creative Designer, Display Artist, Floral Designer and Florist for both commercial and private clients blossomed through his company, John Newton Design.  John continues to run John Newton Design, a company providing a full service of consultancy, exterior and interior design and creative artistry, from his studio and residence at the Quarter Acre Paradise in Auckland, New Zealand. Among the extensive list of John's valued clients who employ his services include: the world famous photographer Anne Geddes; Best Blooms; Colgate Palmolive; Flower Systems; Glaxo Kline Smith; Griff Trading; Hogewoning International; Oasis International; Paragon; Ex-Prime Minister Helen Clark; a wide variety of floral and gift ware importers; plus a large following of devoted private clients.
 
John Newton is famous for his creative flare when it comes to planning and setting up special interest commercial and educational shows and striking displays.  He has considerable expertise with live public demonstrations and is a good Presenter for instructional videos used in business, educational, government and industrial organizations. He has produced exception displays for many successful Commercial Design Events whose focus is to introduce and promote their new range of products. John’s creative expertise is often employed to demonstrate these products. He is also a Commercial Consultant for purchases and introducing new product lines. This has included company travel overseas on buying trips.

John’s charitable nature has produced exceptional displays over 17 years of the Heroic Garden Festival, now focused on raising funds for Mercy Hospice. He also created brilliant displays when the Quarter Acre Paradise Gardens was asked to feature in the Trinity Garden Festivals that raised the funds necessary to build the Auckland Cathedral in Parnell. He has created the displays and planned the event activities for 15 years of the Child Cancer Christmas Parties held at the Quarter Acre Paradise Gardens 1990-2005. Plus he has been an avid supporter of H.O.P.E. Trust’s charitable activities for disadvantaged communities and remains a valuable member on their Board of Directors.
 
John Newton’s remarkably talented design and organizational skills are perhaps best exemplified in his remarkable charity events known as the "Great Christmas Light Show" and “Magic of Christmas” These famous events are meant to promote and are sponsored by H.O.P.E. Trust. The "Great Christmas Light Show" and “The Magic of Christmas” became "legendary" attractions in the gardens of the Quarter Acre Paradise featuring more than 100,000 fairy lights sparkling amongst 100,000 flowers in elaborate designs and displays. As many as 12 brilliantly decorated Christmas trees towering at 12ft-15ft/3.59-4.5m filled the fully decked and ornamented conservatories sparkling with thousands of twinkly lights lights. Cascades of light filled other rooms. Every outdoor ‘room’ of the Quarter Acre Paradise twinkled with fairy lights like a magical glow worm cave. These inspiring displays were complimented by the entertainment, continuous seasonal music and special guest choirs that created amazing and unforgettable evening events. For several years these magical Light Show events were coordinated as evening entertainment to coincide with the Ellerslie Flower Show, which at the time was New Zealand’s premier ‘Garden Country’ botanical event.
 
The spectacular success of these shows helped propel the Quarter Acre Paradise Gardens into the status of an international tourist attraction. The gardens are visited annually by scores of special interest groups from throughout New Zealand and many other countries. The gardens continue to feature on various media and television segments and have become a community landmark.

John Newton is also known by the title of "Mr Christmas". This title was affectionately bestowed upon him by his Colleagues, the International Design Trade, New Zealand Media and his dedicated following of Public Admirers. His title is well-earned because of John’s brilliantly creative success with Christmas shows, his clever and passionate dedication to Christmas decorating and his appreciation for the true meaning of ‘Christmas’.
 
John was invited to England in 2003 to collaborate with England's most exclusive and largest Decorating Companies, Paragon and Best Blooms, specializing in Silk Flowers and Christmas Theme Decorating where he helped set up their main showroom in Ascot. He also installed Christmas themes for clients in Oxford Street, London. While in London John helped design and edit the yearly catalogue for Best Blooms / Paragon. John also assisted with the installation and planning of the Best Bloom/Paragon massive display stands at one of Europe's largest wholesale shows in Birmingham and Harrogate England. The results of this spectacular commercial design effort produced £750,000.00 of sales in only 3 days!

John Newton’s highest quality Silk Flower Designs produces a continual flow of special silk flower orders. He is a world class Design Expert in beautiful and strikingly realistic silk flower wedding work and creative designs for commercial businesses and private clients.

John is a well respected Adult College Teacher of Floral Arts, specializing in silk arrangement styles. He regularly teaches courses at several Auckland Colleges with course emphasis on Creative Arts and Design; Floristry and Floral Display Arts.

John returned to the USA in 2004-2005 as a Consulting Designer.  Here John assisted long time business partner Dale Harvey with a variety of business and landscape designs, garden and educational projects for garden centers, schools, private homes, clubs and community organizations and commercial businesses. This included the development of an impressive woodland landscape for an exclusive beach and lake-front hotel and restaurant complex.

He also added invaluable assistance for a large Hunting Lodge and events/function center in Wisconsin. John played a large part in the design, installation and maintenance plus staff training of this extensive project. The plantings for the lodge included 2,700 ornamental trees and shrubs and many thousands of flowering perennials featuring mostly native species from America’s Mid-west. Literally several miles of instant turf were installed around the grounds of the Lodge. The overall design skilfully recreated a verdant green meadow flowing down to a ‘natural’ lake bordered by great sweeps of wildflowers leading to a botanical forest landscape where before there was bare ground! The entire project was completed in just 5 weeks, including training the lodge staff that had limited gardening experience. The hunting lodge quickly became a botanical tourist attraction. Today this successful project is maintained and is continuing to develop through the efforts of the local staff John helped train and is becoming an environmental landmark and major commercial asset for central Wisconsin.
 
John Newton Design is also a famous Special Events Coordinator. He demonstrates an uncanny ability to coordinate, decorate and plan successful major wedding events.  His many loyal customers attest to his remarkable ability to create perfectly tailored wedding bouquets, fashionable decorated surroundings including stunning major floral arrangements and perfectly coordinated wedding events. The same applies to unique special events, like the Yates 125 Anniversary Gala Celebration and the Mangere East Family Planning Services Conference, a variety of year-end Corporate and School Christmas Parties, private birthday parties, christenings and so many more.
 
John Newton is also the Web Master for the beautiful and very special botanical/educational website www.daleharvey.com:  A brilliant botanical website dedicated to gardening and inspiring beautification and botanical redevelopment of the Planet. The website focuses on botanical education and gardening information; community, global and individual environmental issues; inspirational and spiritual development; research and vivid photographs all meant to uplift individual and community advancement, appreciation and caring of the Earth and the amazing world(s) around us.
 
John is helping to archive and promote over 60 years of nearly continuous botanical and gardening experiences that Dale Harvey has been gaining through insights, shared learning and teachings from a great number of seasoned Gardeners, Botanical Masters and National Treasure Personalities plus many inspirational insights from Nature itself. In response to these insights and knowledge, Dale has been able to create a remarkable career over many decades producing top-rated, sell-out success in his gardens, performances, photographs, research and writing.
 
Now with the assistance of highly creative Designer and Web Master, John Newton, all this invaluable botanical and garden information and knowledge is being uploaded to their botanical educational website www.daleharvey.com. This is a monumental effort that over time will become the focus of a large garden encyclopaedia and vast botanical/environmental information resource available to the World Community where it can be used to help create and grow a more beautiful, bountiful and caring Planet.
 
John hopes to continue his creative pursuits in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA and perhaps make time for a creative return trip to Europe.
 

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