Once I got a suggestion in another forum, that made me very annoyed. At the time I thought it was a bad taste joke and way too pretentious .
"You have to get at least 50 plants to do bonsai."
Now I see how true it is.
First, as a hobby, you always have some chore to attend when you have more than a few trees.
Second, you don't kill your trees with too much TLC.
Now that I have a lot of plants and seedlings filling up my space, I am killing
less of them, and having more fun.
He was right after all.

I have been told that too. Yeet, I have also been told that more than 40 trees is too many. By people who have 15-+ trees.

The thinking goes.. You have about a week to two weeks of work per good tree each year. Simply math bring you to 25-50 trees that you can maintain at a higher level. As I only have some 15 trees that are getting towards exhibition quality, i am not worried about my 100+ trees.

And indeed; There is always something that needs to bedone, keeping my fingers away from playing for the sake of it, and each tree gets a few minutes attention every few weeks.

Can't handle more than fifty? Go to internationalbonsai.com, look at that collection, and click Arboretum Tour. You get to see about a third of his trees there. I don't know how he does it.

Ivan wrote:

I don't know how he does it.

He is a professional, who has a team of people assiting him?

Yes there is a big difference between Pro and amateur, especially if the amateur has to work. I am retired, but I still don't get to all of my trees as often as I would like, apart from watering of course. I have friends with 200 and more trees but I only(?) have about 120. I tend to look after the good ones more than the rest.
Anyway, just remember there is always room for one more.
Geoff.

I don't know his setup. I have been to his place twice - one of my sons goes to school in Rochester and we have been there twice. I haven't seen anybody there but his wife, who is probably pressed into watering from time to time.

He does not have a sprinkler setup but waters them all with a hand sprayer. Fall and spring he gets people to help him carry all of them into the garage and then back out. He also goes to Japan a lot, and there is a poster in the shop about a demonstration he did in Brazil - I don't remember where.

Interesting place to visit.