And on Saturday, May 31 the public will have the chance to look around in aid of the Alzheimer's Society.

Ann will be there, with family, friends and volunteers with the charity, but Roy won't. He died last January at the age of 86 from one of the 50 forms of dementia.

For Ann, it's a chance to help the organisation that gave her so much help as the condition took its devastating toll on Roy.

After spending five years watching her husband suffer symptoms ranging from loss of balance to loss of memory and weight, she desperately wants to do her bit to improve research into dementia and the advice and support available to carers.

The garden in Belgrave Road was created by the couple over 20 years. "It was a teenager's kicking a ball around garden and between us we built it up.

"It's really a spring garden with grasses and herbs and plants and trees and a nice conservatory, which Roy designed. Roy was a brilliant draughtsman and teacher and he was the designer. He designed the garden and I planted it."

When Ann opened the garden to the garden last July, the event raised £1,800. A similar occasion she organised at the Bishop of Sheffield's garden at Bishopscroft in Ranmoor generated £2,000 for the Alzheimer's Society.

This will be the last time Ann welcomes visitors to her garden, though, as she prepares to move to somewhere smaller, an apartment in Riverdale Road.

She describes the onset of Roy's dementia – a type called Lewy Bodies Dementia – as like the brain flickering on and off. At times, there can be moments of lucidity but, as the condition gets worse, "everything in your life is turned upside down".

Roy spent the last two years of his life at a care home in Broomhill.

As a former non-executive director at the Northern General Hospital and chair of a Sheffield Primary Care Trust, Ann knows her way around the health system, but became acutely aware of the practical and financial pressures facing victims and their carers.

"There is no cure. It's about learning how to manage it. We had a lot of help from the Alzheimer's Society, the Carers' Trust, the GP was marvellous and the social worker was lovely. But we had to work hard to find people to help us, and most people don't have the contacts I have."

Ann now chairs the Sheffield branch development committee of the Alzheimer's Society and the Carers' Trust in Sheffield.

The open garden event, from 1pm to 5pm, will also feature the sale of cream teas, plants, books and produce stalls.

"It will be a fun occasion with family, friends and lots of volunteers with personal experience of caring for somebody, people with their own stories to tell."

lAnn le Sage-Cridland's garden is at 61 Belgrave Road, at the junction with Tom Lane. Admission is £1.50.