Alan Bloom

Alan Herbert Vauser Bloom MBE (19 November 1906 – 31 March 2005) was a British horticulturist and steam engine enthusiast.

He invented the garden feature of freestanding island beds, set in open lawn.

In 1926 aged twenty he rejoined his father at Oakington, transforming the family business to a wholesale nursery.

In September 1947, following a destructive gale in March, he left this for Vancouver Island, with his partner Violet Holt, his children and their half sister Phillipa (Ship Aquitania dep 8 September 1948); leaving the Bressingham nursery in the hands of an agent but returned twenty months later.

In 1985 they began the Blooms of Bressingham company, which expanded worldwide with heathers and conifers alongside the core perennial production business.