WOW!!! The Giants of The Earth

Few people in horticulture have in their career been involved in as many aspects as Adrian Bloom. From age 18, when he left the local Diss Grammar School, Adrian had little or no interest in joining the family business. After four years spent travelling and working on nurseries in the USA, Denmark and Switzerland, both he and his late brother Robert were asked by Alan Bloom to join the family business, then going through difficult times. In 1962, aged 22, he joined Blooms Nurseries, begun by his father Alan Bloom, well-known nurseryman specialising in perennials who created his now famous island beds in the 6-acre Dell Garden at Bressingham Gardens from 1953-1962. Adrian not only added a completely new range of plants to the Blooms business, but promoted conifers and heathers across the country, selling container-grown plants to the burgeoning garden centre market. At the peak, conifers in particular became 50% of the nursery sales, with over 1 million plants in production.As a GardenerSuccinctly, Adrian has created other notable gardens at Bressingham apart from his own; a Summer Garden and a renowned Winter Garden. He has also designed and planted others in the USA, England and Germany. He introduced a novel scheme, creating ‘give away gardens’ to homeowners to promote the idea of planting front gardens in the UK and USA from 1978 until 2007. For 35 years he was involved in setting up the Bressingham Gardens exhibits (many outside as well as in the Marquee) at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the company winning 26 gold medals. Now in his 80s Adrian has written his first children's book about the plight of the Giant Redwoods, a subject close to his heart ever since first planting some in Bressingham in 1966.

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• ContentsGreg goes to California       1Doug the Douglas Squirrel  23How Big is Big?                   33Believing the unbelievable  45Spreading the seed             63Back to the Present             73The Calaveras GroveA Natural Treasure              79