Mr Wrigley died peacefully at the age of 80 on a trip to Brunswick Heads, near Coffs Harbour, with his wife Marcia by his side, on July 17.

He designed the popular water gardens on Armidale’s Bicentennial Arboretum. He personally supervised the selection of the large granite boulders which came from Uralla. His vision for the gardens themselves surrounding the pond has never been realised because of a lack of maintenance by Council. 

Mr Wrigley was best known as the lead author of the book Australian Native Plants - Propagation, cultivation and use in landscaping, which he produced with illustrator and photographer Murray Fagg. The pair also produced books on proteaceae, leptospermum and a botanical and social history of eucalypts.

He trained as an industrial chemist and worked with Shell and Unilever before being appointed as Curator of the Canberra Botanic Gardens in 1967, a career change based on his hobby and passion for propagating and growing Australian native plants. 

In this role he was responsible for the establishment of the Rainforest Gully and the Rock Garden, both significant landmark projects in the evolution of gardening using Australian natives. Both features now attract hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. 

In 1981, he moved to Coffs Harbour and designed the North Coast Regional Botanic Gardens from scratch. From there he also established a plantation export industry using the immature foliage of native rainforest plants, especially proteaceae.

Mr Wrigley was a horticulturist who placed a strong emphasis on linking growing plants to voucher specimens. He collected 4481 herbarium specimens during his time at the gardens in Canberra. He was also passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience: he produced 75 publications (17 books, 58 papers), two interactive computer garden software packages on CD, and a calendar on Australian plants. 

A plant Adenanthos ileticos EC Nelson is named for John Wrigley, with the epithet derived from the Greek for “to wriggle”.