Beloved radio host dies as devastated colleagues pay | UK News

Beloved radio presenter and gardening professional Walter Reeves has died aged 74. Reeves handed away on Friday (April 10) following a decade-long battle with Parkinson’s disease. The presenter fronted the favored morning show, The Lawn and Garden Show with Walter Reeves, for 26 years on Georgia radio station WSB. He hosted the Saturday morning garden from 1994 to 2020, until his retirement.

Longtime WSB radio government Condace Pressley said: “He was like your favorite bathrobe and slippers you put on Saturday morning with your cup of coffee. He gives you ideas about what you want to do with your lawn and your garden. His gift was making goals attainable.” Reeves graduated from UGA with a degree in chemistry and was a University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agent from 1980 until 2005.

From 1998 to 2011, he hosted GPB’s Your Southern Garden and also contributed a weekly column to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1991 until the newspaper’s print version ended last yr.

Reeves also authored and co-authored 9 books on gardening.

Ashley Frasca, who took over his weekly gardening show in 2020, paid tribute to the late star on Saturday morning.

“Walter had this special quirkiness and natural curiosity,” she said. “He was this larger than life personality. People would greet him like he was a rock star.”

Announcing his retirement in 2020, Reeves said: “I started thinking seriously: ‘When and how and why would I ever want to retire from radio?’ I would need to be confident that the listeners to the Lawn and Garden show would continue to get good, research-based garden information.

“Secondly, I might need to be assured that whoever changed me could be proficient, educated and dedicated to being helpful.”

He continued: “My two circumstances have been met. The show would continue to offer good, correct data and my trusted colleague Ashley Frasca could be host. Best of all, it meant I may still sometimes be in the studio with Ashley.

“It meant I could continue doing my newspaper column. I would continue to manage my website and I can still answer garden questions there.

“So after internet hosting the Lawn and Garden show for 26 years, (that’s 1352 reveals, if you’re good at math) I can have my Friday and Saturday nights back. I can journey for more than a couple weeks at a time. That shall be great!”

Reeves added: “I’ve had a fantastic time being on the radio and I’m grateful to WSB for the chance.”

Tributes have flooded in for Reeves online, with one writing: “I had no thought that I beloved gardening until I began listening to Walter in 1993. That show modified my enjoyment of life. Four or 5 years later I used to be lucky enough to train his candy niece who confirmed me a Pike advert in Parade magazine with the simple assertion, ‘That’s my uncle.’ I screamed, ‘Walter is your uncle?!’ Later that yr she gave me his autograph for Christmas. I still have it. How fortunate metro Atlanta was to have Walter!”

Another penned: “Man, I’m only 35, manner out of the reveals ‘demographic’. He was on the radio for most of my life! Loved listening on Saturday mornings when I used to be a younger 20 yr previous driving vans and cranes around city. I take advantage of his web site now that I truly own a home. RIP Walter! You taught us a lot!”

A 3rd shared: “My condolences to the Reed household. I listened to him for a long time on the morning garden show on WSB. He was so educated about agriculture and delivered his information with such a healthful persona. I regarded ahead to catching him normally in the spring singing the Poison Ivey music. I did know of his sickness. I do know heaven is a little greener with him there.”