[4][5] He paid for a nursery tour of the Netherlands with money raised selling sweet peas from his back garden to a local florist.

[3] After working for two years on seed trial grounds, Seabrook studied horticulture at Writtle College in Essex, earning a diploma in 1956.

On BBC television, beginning in 1975, he presented programmes including Gardeners' World, Pebble Mill at One and the Chelsea Flower Show.

He created in her honour the flower Margaret's Memory, a pale pink verbena, and donated the proceeds to Alzheimer's Research UK.

He was gardening, campaigning and writing columns until the end; he had visited RHS Hyde Hall and W. D. Smith's Nurseries the day before he died.