Town of Newmarket horticulturist Johnny Dwyer is retiring in early 2022 after spending 27 years making the town bloom with colours and brightening spirits along the way.
When Dwyer first started working for the town, Newmarket’s horticulture program was small, with just six planters.
“I said, ‘That’s it? It’s April and you need planters for June?’ I said stuff should have been ordered,” Dwyer said of his first impression of the job.
However, he was up for the challenge.
That first year, he brought them up to 12 planters and made a connection with Madsen’s Greenhouse to rent space to grow what was needed for the planters.
“Everybody thought I worked for Madsen’s because I used to answer questions (for customers). They didn’t know that the town was paying for the space there,” Dwyer said.
Since then, he has worked out of two different greenhouses that the town built and has grown the horticultural department to include hundreds of planters and hanging baskets.
For Dwyer, his success comes from his passion for the job.
“For me and everybody that knows me, it’s a passion and I would tell everybody… If you don’t have a passion for the job, why are you doing it?” he said.
“If you’re going to do a job like this because it pays well, then forget it because it’s not going to work,” Dwyer shared. “You got to have the passion because there’s the good and there’s the bad. A lot of people just want to take the good but it all goes together.”
His passion for plants stems from growing up in Jamaica, where he lived for 20 years before moving to Canada as a young man.
“Growing up in the islands, there’s always flowers,” Dwyer said. “For us, we have it all around. It’s tropical all day long, all year long. The roses are always growing.”
Despite that love of gardening, horticulture was not his first career.
Dwyer got his start in welding. He worked on steel train cars, bridges, a ship, and even the Skydome, now known as the Roger’s Centre.
Dwyer said when the company he was working for closed, he was given the opportunity to go to school and have it paid for by the union and government.
He went to Seneca College and expected to work in hardscaping, building decks and doing other landscaping work. However, as part of his program, he did a co-op with Richmond Hill’s horticulture program.
From there, he was contacted about the opportunity in Newmarket and the rest is history.
“Maybe it’s just luck. Everything kind of just fell into place for me,” Dwyer said.
Over the past 27 years since then, Dwyer has seen five mayors and too many councillors to count.
He has also made a number of big steps during that time.
Not only did he oversee the exponential growth of the program over the years but he was instrumental in the municipality building its own greenhouses.
He was also responsible for bringing self-watering planters to the town. The planters reduce the amount of time people have to spend watering the plants, therefore saving the town money on labour costs.
However, for Dwyer one of the biggest highlights of his career was working with the students and young people who worked with the program.
“I’ve probably gone through 100 students over the years and I still talk to them,” he said.
He added that he thinks he has been a mentor for some of them and that he feels good knowing he could teach them and help them on their journey, especially the ones he could tell were passionate about horticulture.
“They just want to learn everything. Everything you do, they’re asking questions. When you see someone who’s asking questions and when they give you that energy, too, make sure you give it to them,” Dwyer said.
The other highlight for the horticulturist has been the people of Newmarket.
“Newmarket’s a great place. I did it for the town, for the people. Especially the elders,” Dwyer said.
He shared that recently while they were out working downtown, an elderly man came over and thanked him for the flowers. He told him he lived at a nearby seniors residence where they don’t have a garden, so he likes to go downtown and admire the displays there.
“When I do it, I do it having in mind that I don’t want to disappoint these people. I gotta make it happen,” Dwyer said.
Now, though, it’s time for the next chapter.
“A lot of the employees, they really don’t know how old I am so when they hear my age a lot of people still think, ‘Oh, Johnny’s only 50-something’ but I’m probably the oldest one in the town,” he said.
Dwyer will turn 73 next year.
He said he still has his health and that’s why he wants to retire now so he can still enjoy retirement while he’s healthy.
Jeff Bond, manager of parks & property services with Newmarket, has worked with Dwyer since Day 1 and said they will be “hard shoes to fill.”
“Where it was when he came to town, where that program was just six to 10 planters to what it is now. The town has over 600 barrels and baskets all together that’s used across town,” Bond said.
He said Dwyer’s legacy is definitely the downtown core along Main Street and the bridge over Fairy Lake.
“It just brought a touch of class and a touch of beautification,” Bond said of the work Dwyer did downtown.
He said not only will he miss the horticulture work, but also his work ethic and everything else Dwyer has done for the town.
According to Bond, not only did Dwyer advance the horticulture program, but he was always willing to lend a hand with any job that needed to be done like welding Christmas directions, cutting the grass, and even driving a snow plow.
Bond said he also appreciated his smiling face, calm demeanour, and dedication to his job, saying you never had to check his work.
He said his message to Dwyer is: “Thank you for the years of service that you put in with the town and the great work that you’ve done and where you got us to.”
Mayor John Taylor also praised Dwyer and thanked him for his dedication to the town.
“On behalf of council, we would like to thank Johnny for his hard work and dedication to the Town of Newmarket for the past 27 years. Johnny has truly delivered a horticultural program that is ‘well beyond the ordinary’ and one that is loved and admired by thousands of residents,” he said. “Johnny leaves a legacy of ‘nothing but the best’ for Newmarket and we will continue to honour his work for many years to come. Congratulations Johnny on your retirement and on an incredible career.”
Dwyer said he has a lot of ideas for how to spend his retirement and he plans to explore his other passions outside of gardening.
One of those passions is dance, something he said he learned as a young man.
“I’m always dancing, for the longest time. This is one thing I started early. I have to learn to dance because if you can’t dance, then the lady’s not going to dance with you,” he said. “You see a nice lady and you can’t dance, forget it.”
He hopes he’ll be able to get better at salsa dancing during his retirement and may even take some classes for it.
Dwyer’s other passion is for travelling and exploring new places. Once it’s safe to do so he wants to go to Italy and enjoy local food and wine.
“I want to sit in a little village, in a restaurant that’s been there for 50 years, still doing the same old stuff,” he said.
He also wants to travel all across Canada, adding that “it’s endless.”
Until then, Dwyer will be making the most of his last weeks at work, before his retirement which was originally set for Dec. 31, 2021 and was pushed back to the end of April 2022.
While he could take it easy he said he wants to continue giving 100 per cent and help make it a smooth transition for whoever takes over his role.
Dwyer said he has even already ordered plants for next year because you can’t wait until the last minute for those.
Bond said they worked with him to make note of every detail that they need to know to keep the horticulture program going.
They will aim to hire a replacement for Dwyer as part of the transition process.
Bond said they also hope to carry on the program just as strong as it is now, or even better.
“It will be hard to top it but we’ll aim for that,” he said.
Bond also said they will look at how they could implement Dwyer’s model of working into other parts of the public works department.
Editor's Note (Dec. 30, 2021): The Town of Newmarket said Dwyer extended his retirement to April 2022 to allow for more time to recruit for the position.
