How many plants do you have?

[CactusFanDan]

Good question! I've not gotten around to counting them recently, but I'd guess around 500-600 that are old/big enough to not be called babies anymore. As for how many babies I have? 1000-2000 or so individual little seedlings, perhaps even more and I'm in the process of sowing more at the moment. I won't be keeping all of them though, just a handful of selected specimens of each variety. Most of my plants are cacti, but I have a decent bit of variety.

[Harriet]

I would buy plants year round, but it becomes more difficult during the winter as some growers just won't ship their plants in the cold. This is not so much of a problem for people in southern CA, but elsewhere it can put a quick stop to a plant acquisition addiction. So, during the winter my purchases tend to be impulse buys at local nurseries rather than careful choices of specific (or lusted after) plants from C&S growers.

[emilleejoyce]

I have no car and really no local nurseries close enough to ride a bus too. The closest nursery to me actually gave me a nice infestation of fungus gnats the one time I bought a plant from them - so I try to only use them for buying pots. Haha. Most of my purchases come from an ebay seller I trust who ships with heat packs so I don't have to worry about the plants freezing on the way to me. Though I'll probably stop ordering online once the absolute depths of winter arrive.

[*Barracuda_52*]

I guess i lost count on mine LOL!! I grow indoors and start seed/seperate pups/start cuttings and do alot of repotting durring winter months, i have a huge grow room with racks and lights, and durring the late spring and summer early fall months i grow everything outdoors in greenhouses.

[hendryterok]

I dont count my C&S plants, but its about 200+ plants(Adeniums, sansevierias, cacti, gasterias, haworthias, agaves) not including hundreds of cacti seedling(some from members of this forum). for watering in dry season I do every 3 days and 5 days in rainy season.
As Im in tropical country I grow plant outdoor as well but in pots

Cheers
Hendry

[melodies]

I just counted! I just started this year, so I only have about 50 or 60. And about 100 seedlings that are no older than 3 1/2 months.

[DaveW]

Where do I get plants from? A lot come from speakers around the UK who bring plants most months to help defray their expenses when giving talks to our monthly Nottingham BCSS Branch Cactus Meetings. Others by post from nurseries, or the occasional nursery visit, and on the odd occasion from cactus shows and of course swapping with friends.

I also manage to get a lot of the more uncommon stuff from The Cactus Explorers Weekend, since the people who attend are often those who have collected seed in habitat, some even discovered the new plants, therefore have species for sale not usually in general circulation yet.

Also one of the few advantage of the European Union for me is we can buy plants from dealers or obtain them from friends virtually all over Europe without any phytosanitory certificate or CITES problems, since we are considered one single market where goods can pass freely by post, air, or even car if you travel through the EU. I brought a couple of plants back from Spain in my suitcase, which was obviously x-rayed before it went into the aircraft hold with no problems.

From the point of seed I am lucky in I have good friends who often visit habitat and give me some.

If you are not a member of your countries cactus society it is often worth joining as many produce a seed list for members, plus nurseries advertise in their journals. The Cactus Mall usually contains a list of societies, clubs and nurseries by country, or sometimes even local region:-

http://www.cactus-mall.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I very seldom now buy plants from local shops since they no longer have the range available that interest me. It's pretty well just as easy to buy by post from specialist cactus nurseries, many who have Web sites to order from.

[Tetrazole]

Currently there are 328 plants listed in my Excel file. Most are Euphorbias, Pachypodium, Cacti and assorted Asclepiads (Hoodia, Huernia, Stapelia etc.).

I too subscribe to the survival of the fittest policy - unless I really like a specific species and want it in the collection I often don't replace a lost plant. My collecting interests change as time goes by, thus I donate plants to the local Botanical Gardens to make room for my newest obsession. Besides the Botanical Gardens, I know a few local succulent enthusiast and give them plants as well. Over the past three years I gave ~180 plants away, only to fill their spots with new species.

From Early October though mid-May, I keep them in a large, south facing sunroom. I transfer nearly every plant outdoors from mid-May through the first week or so of October. Once they seem to be putting on new growth, I look over the whole collection and decide what plants need to be repotted in a larger size pot. This is where a large collection can get tricky. What fit in the sunroom over winter may require 10-20% more space by the time they are ready to go back inside after the summer growing season.

As for care, I try to use only rainwater or dehumidifier water to water them. They all get some diluted fertilizer during the time they are outside. I also treat every plant with systemic pesticide (imidacloprid) at the beginning of the outdoor season and just before bringing them back inside. When in the sunroom, I have a fan that runs 24/7 to keep the air gently moving around them. Between the pesticide and air movement, I have avoided most problems with pests and diseases. The most annoying problem I have is with the usual weeds that want to live in pots with the main plant - spurge and oxalis. These can take over a pot quickly in the summer and are really hard to remove if the specimen plant is heavily spined. Fortunately, they rapidly dry up and die from lack of enough light and water once the collection is moved back inside for the cold months. The bulk of the collection gets no water from the time they come inside until late December. The get watered again in early February and then more and more frequently until they go back outside for the warm months.

Most plants are procured late winter through early summer. This give them the best chance to get reestablished and actively putting on new growth before winter sets in.

[Saxicola]

I've probably got 400-500, not counting duplicates or things I sell on Ebay. With all the C&S societies, shows, and growers in Southern California it is hard to go anywhere plant related without several new additions following me home!

[JustSayNotoCactus]

Thanks for giving me the motivation to go out and count, and based on crude estimation I would say I have about 618 adult cacti, euphorbs, asclepiads and others in my collection, not counting seedlings. I currently also have 315 Adenium seedlings, 1476 pots of cacti with 1, 5, or 9 seedlings per pot, 324 pots of miscellaneous mesemb seedlings 5 or 9 to a pot, 484 pots of conophytum seedlings at 1, 5, or 9 to a pot, and 120 pots of lithops seedlings at mostly 5 or 9 per pot for a grand total of 3341 pots of plants in nearly all succulent families.

The plants in my collection come from all over the world and have vastly different watering regimes so I like to group plants together according to growing season as much as possible. To keep them all healthy, I will put dormant plants in dry shady spot that will not get any precip or accidental watering. Once the individual or group of plants begin to grow again, I put them back out into prime growing space.

How do we remember which group of plants is doing what at what time? Well, while the rest of the world stuffs their brains with the stats on their favorite sports heros, I use that space in my brain to remember stats on my favorite plant heros. I try to talk to other growers as much as possible to find out what they do for their plants. I try to read everything I can about the plants themselves and what they are expecting from us. I also try to research as much as I can about the weather, soil, and other factors that influence the plants.

Oh yeah, and anytime is a good time to add to your collection, just remember to re-pot and change the soil completely as soon as possible, many times the soil plants come in from the nursery is complete garbage.

[C And D]

Me and Denise have over 2000 varieties or species.
I gave up long ago worrying about having too many plants.

I just gave into the addiction and decided to revel in the joy of having as many plants as I want.

We have limited room as well, so we pack them in, and many pots have more than 1 plant.
The use of square pots helps.

After years of experience, I now have more of a nursery caretaker's mentality. Everything needs lots of water!
Watering with a hose over the top of everything, drenching them as much as possible.
We water by schedule, once a week in the warm months, every week to 3 weeks in the cooler months.
Plants that are dormant get no water, or lite water, but it seems that we water almost every plant on the schedule 8 months out of the year.

Almost every plant can adapt if you are careful for plants that have special needs.

You can only water on a schedule if your soil is lean enough to allow it, that way the plants that don't need the water won't rot when they get too much at the wrong time of year.

I say this because I have noticed that most novices under water.

[SnowFella]

Goes up and down alittle nowadays as I don't buy as many plants as I used to. In just over a year my collection exploded from just a handfull to hundreds.
As it stands now I'd say I have somewhere between 200 and 250 plants in pots and another 30 or so plants out in the garden.

As I don't really want to drown the area I have the plants in I water by hand using a small wateringcan, hit them twice a season with a systemic (once early in the season and once again towards the end) and occationally with fertilizer. Probably should water more often than what I do knowing the warm summers we have down here, think if I did I'd be getting more flowers than what I do get.

[emilleejoyce]

This is all very interesting to me. I can't imagine going about this survival of the fittest policy! I develop such emotional attachments to my plants but I suppose when you have hundreds, it's easier NOT to be sentimental. I'm also surprised at how quickly some of y'all said your collection grew! I've been carefully choosing plants over the last 3 years in order to keep my collection small. It's only since I've discovered the ability to buy plants online that my collection has started to take off.

[CactusFanDan]

This is all very interesting to me. I can't imagine going about this survival of the fittest policy! I develop such emotional attachments to my plants but I suppose when you have hundreds, it's easier NOT to be sentimental.

You say that, but I imagine everyone still has their favourite plants which hold more sentimental value than others. Maybe it was the first plant they raised from seed, or it was a gift from a friend or relative, or maybe you just think it's really pretty or unique. A few of my plants have nicknames. But having a lot certainly makes it easier to not get attached to every single little speck of a plant. Nonetheless I'll always still try my best to save a plant in distress.

[majcka]

23 more than when you asked the question.