Paul working on Juniper

Paul working on a Juniper

Paul is the Chairman of Swindon Bonsai Club and has been doing bonsai since the early 1990s so has over 26 years experience with keeping, growing and maintaining bonsai trees. His first ever bonsai tree was a Siberian Elm which was given to him originally and he still has it now and it was in the Swindon Winter Image Show this year. Furthermore, to celebrate his bonsai achievements in 2016 he was enrolled on the Federation of British Bonsai (FoBBs) ‘Roll of Honour’ which for Paul was totally unexpected and took his breath away.

2nd place, PB Cotoneaster

2nd place, PB Cotoneaster

His favourite tree is a Cotoneaster and he does very well with this species whilst his least favourite tree is Ficus. He enjoys working on his Elms and has a sizeable bonsai tree collection of all sizes of tree.

2nd place, PB Lonicera

2nd place, PB Lonicera

One of his prefered styles of bonsai is root over rock and he has developed from cuttings a great collection of root over rock Lonicera and Cotoneaster.

Paul has had a number of trees passed onto him with the statement ‘see what you can do with that’ and he has been able to do a lot with them as can be seen from the above photos of a Scots Pine when he first had it to later years following his work and development. He has bought a few bonsai trees as well and also collected two trees, a Hawthorn and a Hornbeam.

Wanborough Show 2014

Wanborough Show 2014

Paul is still learning and is keen to learn more about Pines. He is a very keen promoter of bonsai as a hobby and regularly puts on displays at local shows as well as regional shows to aid with the promotion of his hobby and Swindon Bonsai Club.

He is inspired by the shows he attended as well as surfing the internet for more inspiration and looking up information from bonsai books. He is also a very active member of wee trees which is bonsai forum and he offers advice and guidance to other hobbyists. Ron Moorcroft originally got Paul into the hobby and he was also a member of Swindon Bonsai Club.

Paul Bowerbank (Chairman of Swindon Bonsai Club), James Thomas (BBC Wiltshire), Moira Bowerbank

Paul enjoys bonsai as a hobby and finds it very restful, however in his role of Chairman this is more demanding and can be sometimes less than restful especially around the Swindon Winter Image Show time.

Award winning

Pauls bonsai

Here are some more of Paul’s bonsai trees and there development as well as being winners of the tree of the month competition on numerous occasions over the years