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"Alan Titchmarsh rated us the best back garden in Britain," says Marie Newton, who started working on her Four Seasons Garden in 1982.

The 70-year-old tends to it with husband Tony and, as the name of their pride and joy suggests, it is the garden's year-round appeal, they say, that has impressed the TV gardener.

Their landscaping appeared in his programme Gardeners' World, with praise, Mrs Newton said, for "achieving the impossible, which was to have a show garden no matter what the weather".

After a two-year hiatus, the private garden in Walsall is to be opened to the public once more.

Their open-garden viewings have already raised more than £43,000 for charity.

The couple hopes the visits on Saturday and Sunday, to more than 3,000 trees, shrubs and plants, will generate more funds.

Their open days have attracted 13,514 visitors from 36 different countries.

Mr Newton, 69, said they saw the work on their garden as more than green-fingered.

He said: "It is a form of art and that's what we're doing, you look at each plant and you're working out; it's like painting a big picture."

The Four Seasons Garden re-opens on Saturday 20 October.