News

Here you will find recent news from the Cheshire Bonsai Society, including show news and meetings news.

September 2025

This month, Caroline Scott of Caz Bonsai came and gave us a talk and demo on a nice little Juniper Chinensis. Seeing the tree for the first time, Caz was able to shape and refine the tree, explaining her thoughts and process along the way.

August 2025

With the unexpected cancellation of the Shrewsbury Flower Show earlier in the year, we were very lucky to be offered a place at the Southport Flower Show. This was very fortunate indeed as it was a brilliant show. Well run, friendly, easy to access, and by the beach! What more could you ask for… Oh yeah, a Large Gold Medal to add to our collection!
Build up for the show was smooth sailing. The staging was perfect, we could park near the marquee, access passes were sensible and straight forward, the weather was grand and it couldn’t have gone better. Hopefully they’ll have us back in 2026!

June 2025

June also saw us return to the Arley Hall Garden Festival. It was a hot and sunny weekend but very windy, which proved a challenge. Luckily our shiney new branded gazebo held firm and we were able to put on a good show. Hopefully we’ll get a lot more opportunity to use the gazebo in the years to come.

June 2025

This month’s meeting was the annual club show. A good turn out, even with the hot sunny weather making the beer garden almost irresistible!

Members voted for their favourite tree in each class, which all won a certificate before being put to a final vote for best in show. Which was won by Simon Jones with his great Juniper.

We had a guest judge Ian Warhurst who give his own best in class and an explanation of how and why he made his decision.

Hopefully even more trees will make an appearance next year!

April 2025

This Month we had a talk by our very own Rachel Seville on Larch as bonsai. Rachel had made a brilliant, informative presentation and talked extensively about how to grow Larch, using examples of her own trees to enthasise points.
Rachel’s notes on her talk are available HERE

October 2024

This month we had a talk and demonstration by Caroline Scott of Caz Bonsai. The meeting was Extremely well attended for her talk and demo on a stock Scots Pine. She multi-tasked all the way through, pruning, trimming, thinning out and wiring, all the while explaining what she was doing and why. There were questions throughout, which Caz answered in depth. At the end of the meeting we were presented with a beautiful Scots Pine bonsai, ready to mature into a potentially show worthy tree. Last year’s demonstration tree was raffled off, and the plan is for this new tree to be raffled next year.

August 2024

With the expected end to RHS Tatton, the society has been on the lookout for a new (or old) show to display our trees and advertise the society. It was decided to trial returning to the Shrewsbury Flower Show.

Our plan was to put on a simple display of two rows of trees on basic staging. By making our display basic, we could limit any logistical complications and test to see how Shrewsbury has changed in the decade since we were last there.

Despite a hiccup with the staging (our fault!) , Shrewsbury was a roaring success, netting us a Large Gold and a good amount of press attention, including our first ever live broadcast! We look forward to returning in 2025!

July 2024

RHS Tatton. The society exhibited member’s trees in what is likely to be the last ever RHS Tatton. Our display was admired by many and scored us yet another RHS Gold medal, our 16th!

June 2024 Club Show

June is traditionally when we hold the club show, it helps us to select trees to take to RHS Tatton in July.

This year we had over 50 trees entered, with categories ranging from Mame through to Large Conifer and Broadleaf, with categories for novice trees and a new “In Training” category.

We also introduced our new Best in Show trophy, which was awarded to Bob Antonio for his amazing Black Pine.

April 2024

In April we were treated to a talk on Pines by Rachel Seville. Rachel has been a member of the society for many years and held multiple roles within the committee. What Rachel doesn’t know about Pines as Bonsai, isn’t worth noting. She has been kind enough to write up her notes for us to use as reference. You’ll find them here

July 2023

RHS Tatton. After our roaring success at RHS Tatton last year (Gold, Best Exhibit in the Floral Marquee, Holford Medal for best society display and Laurence Medal for best display all year) and fresh from our hugely successful RHS Chelsea debut (another Gold) this year, we were ready for whatever Tatton 23 brought, but the pressure to maintain the standard was very high. 

Our fantastic build team quickly and competently put the display together on Sunday, with the trees arriving with the finishing team on the Monday. 

We were judged Tuesday afternoon and arrived on Wednesday to find a lovely shiny Gold medal on our stand, our 15th RHS Gold medal! 

The show week went well, despite the incessant rain, with lots of interest from the public, and members taking the opportunity to work on their trees, which always attracts attention. Hopefully a few will come along to some of our meetings in the not-too-distant future. 

May 2023

RHS Chelsea. In May, we finally made it to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. We won a coveted RHS Chelsea Gold medal for our display! Find our detailed write up here

March 2023

Earlier this year we were invited to The RHS Awards Ceremony in Central London.

Our exhibit had won us the Holford Medal. Awarded to the best exhibit of plants and /or flowers staged during the year by a group of amateurs!

We were also up for the Lawrence Medal! Awarded to the best exhibit from all shows, shown to the society during the year.

Which we are delighted to announce we have also won! 😁🥳

July 2022

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park.
This month the society was proud to put on a display at the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park. As a society, we have a proud tradition of putting displays on at the show, with Gold medals galore. But this year was something else. This year, we were put in amongst all of the professionals in the brilliant Floral Marquee, and….
We won another lovely Gold medal, but we were shocked to also be awarded Best Exhibit In The Floral Marquee! A massive achievement for anyone showing Bonsai, let alone a small society like us!
With the coveted best in marquee, came a flurry of press interest, from The RHS press, BBC Radio, Local Guardian papers among others, a massive boost to the society. Hopefully it will bring with it some new members – The main reason we show at Tatton.
A very quick clip of Matt our Membership Secretary featured on BBC Radio Stoke:
https://fb.watch/esaO81gfI6/
Article in the Guardians: https://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk/news/20298870.cheshire-bonsai-society-wins-best-exhibit-flower-marquee-rhs-tatton/?fbclid=IwAR0l5h7n65a_SxXe3qOQnTR29usKGOTlHyYvgGt7zk5uiCPMlMREQGWdU64

June 2022

This Month we had the Club Show. Which is always an exciting evening, with dozens of great trees on display. The trees were voted on by the membership and we had a guest judge Duncan Hield. Certificates and Prizes were awarded for Best In Category and Best In Show.

April 2022

Last night the society was treated to a talk by guest speaker Tony Tickle. Tony spoke about his process of collecting native trees for use as bonsai, with countless tips and tricks to help, many of which can be applied to our bonsai. He also brought with him a large collected Hawthorn to show the benefits of his experience and techniques.

We were also lucky to have Tony critique a couple of members trees, carrying out a bit of work on an impressive goat willow (Salix caprea).

And to top a packed evening, Simon Jones put on a display of some of his fantastic trees. 🙂

October 2021:

This month we had Rammon Hamers come to the meeting to give a talk and demonstration. Members chose between a Pine and a Taxus (Yew) for what tree they wanted Rammon to work on. They chose the Taxus.

Over 2.5 hours, with lots of helpful information and advice, Rammon turned this rather uninspiring Yew into a fantastic early stages bonsai.

The tree will be raffled among the members at next month’s meeting, and we look forward to seeing it develop :).

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

July 2021 – The Cheshire Bonsai Society has put on a display of members trees at The RHS Flower Show Tatton Park. Winning another gold medal for our collection!

June 2021 – Arley Hall Garden Festival

The Cheshire Bonsai Society was pleased to return to the Arley Hall Garden Festival. Where our display of members trees in the Floral Marquee won us another Gold medal.

February 2021: New Year, no change! The Cheshire Bonsai Society is still here! But current lockdown rules mean we are unable to host our meetings.

September 2020: Corona Update.
The new “Rule of 6” law has ended any possibility of meetings resuming this month. The Committee is committed to restarting meetings in a safe, legal way, and will share widely when the next meeting will go ahead.

March 2020: As per current government guidelines around the Coronavirus crises, all Cheshire Bonsai Society meetings have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. We hope to restart them as soon as we can.

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2019

Continuing from our long line of success at RHS Tatton, this year the society won another GOLD medal, but was also awarded with BEST EXHIBIT IN THE PLANT HUB, a wonderful award that pays tribute to the hard work put in by the members to create our fantastic display.

Arley Hall Garden Festival

In 2019 we put on our first display at the Arley Hall Garden Festival. The show was well attended, in a beautiful setting. It helps that we won Gold!

Poynton Flower Show 2019

In 2019 members of the society put on a display at the Poynton Flower Show, in which we won Gold.