 Until his resignation in late 2018, he was co-president, with David Gilliland, of the Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Trust which he was instrumental in establishing (as the Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Committee) in 1980.Since 1996 he has lived in Outwell, near Wisbech, in England and worked as a freelance botanist, author and editor, frequently leading botanical holidays especially to Crete.His more recent publications include a biography of John Scouler, a Scottish naturalist who was Professor of Mineralogy to the Royal Dublin Society, published in June 2014 by the Glasgow Natural History Society.