I'm a relatively young guy. I'm athletic and do my best to stay in shape. But, from time to time I do have sore muscles and an aching back. I often have to stop and think about what I'm doing and how this will affect my body in the morning.

For years I have worked on my trees just about anywhere. More often than not I ended up at the kitchen counter or dining room table. As you can imagine this makes quite a mess. At times I have worked in the garage, standing in front of a folding table. This too is troublesome, causing a lot of weird posturing to get the appropriate angle for viewing, wiring, trimming, etc. This all has led me to rethink my bonsai workspace.

There have been recent discussions and postings on several different internet forums about bonsai workspaces. This spring I have started to improve my workspace, in hopes that this will help me improve my trees, by providing a better work environment.

My new workspace is in the garage, with blank white walls and plenty of light. The amount of light and white walls makes for a blank canvas should the desire hit me to take a quick photo of a tree. The lights ensures I am able to see well all the areas of a tree that I am working on.

I have recently aquired a large spool from a local cable company. With a nice round turntable installed this makes for a great work table. My office chair also has been upgraded, with the old one now becoming my new bonsai workspace chair. Completing my new setup I have a new 3 tiered cart for tool and wire storage. With a wheeled base I can be sure it is always near when needed, or pushed aside when it is in the way.

I also have a small corner devoted to my stackable containers of soil. I found quite a few small storage boxes at Target that hold several gallons of soil each. I have pre-sifted all of my soil ingredients and keep them in their own clearly labeled bin. I also have 2 bins of pre-mixed soil in medium and small sizes. Keeping these bins close by is a big help when it's time to repot many trees.

So far the newly designed workspace has proven to to be quite beneficial for both my back and my bonsai. In the future I hope to discover even more ways to further improve my workspace.