Exactly 70 years ago Alan Bloom dug a sinuous shape into his lawn, planted it with perennials – and island beds were born.
The unlikely horticultural innovation at Bressingham, near Diss, inspired gardeners around the world, and Alan’s gardens have since been featured in books and television series and are still visited by thousands of people every year.
His gardening genius was to breed handsome, hardy perennial plants and combine them in planting schemes which looked stunning from every direction. His first island beds are still planted with many of the species he developed himself – including the fiery arching flowers of crocosmia lucifer which has since been bought in its millions around the world.
His son, Adrian, said perennials had been seen as the ‘Cinderella’ plants of the gardening world until they finally took centre-stage at Bressingham.
Alan’s island beds soon flowed out from his lawn to neighbouring fields. Today rippling rivers of blooms and waves of grasses run through the garden; huge plant-filled islands float across the landscape and conifers stand sentinel around wooded glades and hidden gardens within gardens, all linked and embraced by wide, green lawn-lanes.
Eventually there were 48 beds packed with almost 5,000 species and varieties of perennials.
The very first beds are still in front of the house and Adrian said: ‘The beds are looking much as they were when my father planted them, although if we have people staying at Bressingham Hall they can only be viewed as a landscape with the hall behind, as they are part of the private area for the guests.’
However, Alan’s beloved Dell Garden is open every day.
Alan arrived in Bressingham in 1946. Before the war his Cambridgeshire plant nursery had been the biggest in England. He developed new plants there and during the war reclaimed Fen land to grow food. After he moved to Bressingham, where the gardens became a test ground for the family nurseries.
New plants were bred with impressive combinations of colour, shape and year-round interest and Alan’s island beds showcased concepts which could be adapted to smaller spaces, so that the vibrant groupings of flowers, shrubs and conifers, surrounded by curving green lanes, could be scaled down for suburban back gardens.
Alan continued developing the Dell Garden, until his death, aged 98, in 2005. His legacy lives on in the gardens he created and in the neighbouring steam museum, now run as a charitable trust. Four narrow gauge railway lines wind through the landscape and exhibition galleries and engine sheds feature historic steam engines, royal carriages, railway layouts and Dad’s Army memorabilia.
Today the Dell Garden links through smaller woodland and sensory gardens into Adrian’s Foggy Bottom garden, created from a marshy field over the past six decades.
The transformation of the garden from wind-swept field to plant-filled paradise is charted in a lavishly illustrated new book by Adrian, published this month.
The book is also a private tour of six-acre Foggy Bottom. Adrian shares his stunning photographs of the garden through the seasons, taking in early morning mists, vibrant summer flowers, autumn colour, and sparkling winter light.
Foggy Bottom has featured in many television programmes, with camera crews visiting from around the world. There is even a mini Bressingham in the United States, named for the Norfolk gardens and created by Adrian for a client in New England.
The Bressingham gardens now flow through 17 acres of the old estate. As well as the Dell Garden and Foggy Bottom there is the summer garden, planted with so many varieties of the Japanese ornamental grass Miscanthus sinensis that it is now Britain’s national collection of the grasses which can grow up to three metres tall. A winter garden glows with colour when the rest of the world is bleached with cold and in Adrian’s woodland garden includes redwood trees he planted almost 60 years ago and which are now more than 24 metres high, surrounded by more native north American plants.
The Fragrant Garden was originally Adrian’s first conifer and heather beds and is now a sweet-smelling delight of flowers and foliage, alongside a picnic area.
Bressingham is still very much a family business.
Blooms Nurseries Ltd was launched by Alan Bloom in 1926 and his Dell Garden has been cared for by his son-in-in-law Jaime Blake for the past 35 years. Adrian is chairman of Blooms Nurseries now, with son Jason the managing director, and son Matt another director.
People come from all over the world to visit the 17 acres of gardens, run by the family with a nursery, mail order and holiday accommodation and events businesses. The original nurseries were sold and are now run as a separate garden centre and the steam museum is a charitable trust.
The steam museum is celebrating a 140th birthday this month. Steam locomotive Gwynedd, built for a Welsh slate-mine railway, is 140 years old will be the star of a mini steam gala on September 9 and 10 featuring trains, traction engines and the historic steam gallopers.
foggybottomgarden.co.uk
Bressingham museum and gardens is open daily 10.30am-5.30pm. thebressinghamgardens.com
