IN PICTURES: Walsall family's joy over TV makeover garden tribute to father
With its distinctive water feature and hanging tree stars it is a fitting tribute to a man who loved the outdoors.
Alan Titchmarsh and his Love Your Garden TV team have transformed the garden of former Walsall Council parks manager Gareth Perrins-Seedhouse, who died from cancer last year, aged 38.
Gareth's wife Nina, who also works at Walsall Council for green spaces, was able to enlist the support of Titchmarsh after applying through the WAY (Widowed and Young) group that she has links with. The family was selected by the producers from more than 10,000 other applicants because of Gareth's tireless work in the borough, his passion for parks and that his last project was to be for his family. After five days of work the new-look back garden at their home, in Bloxwich, was completed in April. And the fruits of the team's labour were aired on the TV show.
Nina and the couple's three young children Cole, aged seven, Maxi, four and Evie, aged two, are now thoroughly enjoying the green surroundings.
The 35 year-old said: "It is brilliant, the kids go out there even before school. It is like another room in my house. It feels like Gareth is a part of that garden with the hanging stars."
The garden includes a large picture of Palfrey Park, where Gareth helped to lead and secure funds for its transformation into a green flag status visitor attraction – the highest accolade awarded to parks.
There is also a raised bed for herbs, fruit and vegetable and space has been set aside for his spade to hang on show.
Nina said she was shocked to be chosen. "I had no idea whatsoever, I was sitting on Gareth's memorial bench in King George V playing fields in Bloxwich – when someone in a hat came to sit on the bench by me, he took his hat off and that's when I realised it was Alan Titchmarsh. Alan said that they would have had a lot in common, as he had started out as a park ranger just like my husband did, too.
"I cannot put in to words what Alan and his team have given to us as a family. It is so special because it is a living and growing tribute to Gareth. I feel him with us every day. He would have been over the moon."
Gareth was first diagnosed with cancer of the saliva gland in 2008 but managed to fight it off. In January 2011 he was told that a different and incurable form of the illness had returned and was in his lungs. He died at Walsall St Giles Hospice last July.
Gareth began working with the ranger service in 1997. Nina joined the authority a year later and the pair tied the knot in 2011.
