Alan Bloom
| Alan Bloom MBE |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
Alan Herbert Vauser Bloom 19 November 1906 Over, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Died | 31 March 2005 (aged 98) Bressingham, Norfolk, England |
| Occupation | Plantsman |
Alan Herbert Vauser Bloom (19 November 1906 – 31 March 2005) was a British horticulturist and steam engine enthusiast. During his life he created over 170 new varieties of hardy perennial plants. These and Alpine plants and conifers were his specialities. He invented the garden feature of freestanding island beds, set in open lawn. He wrote some 30 books and appeared on radio and television. He was the founder of Bressingham Steam and Gardens.
Alan Bloom was himself the son of a market gardener at Over, Cambridgeshire. Aged seventeen he left school and learned his craft working in various nurseries. In 1926 aged twenty he rejoined his father at Oakington, transforming the family business to a wholesale nursery. Four years later, Blooms Nurseries had become one of the largest English nurseries of its kind. He exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show for the first time in 1931, and was awarded the Society's Victoria Medal of Honour in 1972.
During World War II he grew crops in the fens. In 1946 he purchased Bressingham Hall and 228 acres (0.92 km2) of land at Bressingham. In September 1947, following a destructive gale in March, he left this for Vancouver Island, leaving the Bressingham nursery in the hands of an agent but returned twenty months later. Between 1950 and 1962 he continued to develop Bressingham Gardens.
In 1962 he began to collect steam engines, some of which had been retired from British Railways. His two sons Robert and Adrian, from his marriage to Doris Heavens, joined him in the nursery business. In 1968 they opened the Bressingham Steam Museum alongside the nursery.
In 1985 they began the Blooms of Bressingham company. In 1995 Robert Bloom was killed in a car accident, leaving Adrian in charge of the business.
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