FUTURE BRIGHT

Bridget and Karl Allen moved to the picturebook village of Kersey in Suffolk from a small flat in London where their gardening had been confined to planting in pots. “It was a big contrast,” Bridget recalls. “We bought a converted barn with nearly an acre of recently created garden. The main flowerbed had been laid out and planted, but it had large gaps, there were some very young birch trees and a mass of angelica that had run wild.”

Wisely, the Allens decided to wait before changing anything. But once they started they didn’t stop and, 16 years on, they are still planting,