Hi All,

I know this is more of a personal preference kind of question but I’m wondering what the size of your Bonsai collections are. Is there a certain number of Bonsai that you keep in order to balance having variety and the time to properly care for them?

I find myself browsing and wanting to acquire many different types of Bonsai to expand my collection but I’m sure I’ll reach a point where I can’t give each one the individual care it needs.

I’m curious as to when you realized that you had too many Bonsai and how you overcame this problem. For example, selling some off... or perhaps one can never have enough?

You can never have too many trees.

You can have too little yard, too few stands, too few pots, too short a hose to reach and water them all, etc. You can also have too much full time job, too many kids, too many significant others, but never too many trees.

I find that with about 20hrs per week my collection of about 100-130 trees is getting to dificult to manage. Certain times of the year i cannot trim, wire, unwire all at the moment i want to.

I only have about 140 trees at the moment, but there is always room for one more. Sell some and buy more.

seeparks wrote:

Hi All,


.... but I’m sure I’ll reach a point where I can’t give each one the individual care it needs.

That's indeed the point when you have too many of them... It will all balance itself

I firmly believe that less than 50 trees doesn't make a collection.
Mine are split in three different places:
Tropicals at home.
Conifers and maples at my working place (I have a garden there).
Seedlings, cuttings and trees recovering at my country house where my brother lives.
The ones at home and at work get personal care every day.

Some of it depends on how much space you have... I would say this: a comfortable number means having enough trees, that you are always doing something, but not to the same tree...

Wow, I would've never thought people can take care of hundreds of trees on their own unless they own a nursery... I guess I'm slowly building my "collection" but it's no where near 50 trees let alone 100s of trees . I have about 9 trees potted and another 2 in their nursery pots to be potted next year (Korean Lilac and Japanese Maple). I've attached pictures of my current collection and setup. For those of you who have seen my other threads, I had a tarp at one point that failed and damaged some of my trees. I've taken that down and I've ordered a shade sail to put up; that will be my next project.

Clicio, how do you take care of your trees if they're in different locations? Do you have to water them all every day? Where I live it's so hot currently that I sometimes water twice a day.

Edit: Forgot to mention I have a couple seedlings, a loquat, and a sugar apple plant that I’m trying to grow.

seeparks wrote:

Clicio, how do you take care of your trees if they're in different locations? Do you have to water them all every day?

I water early in the morning the ones I keep at home; I water a little later the ones I keep at work; water again in late afternoon both locations, if needed.
The ones in the country home get watered by my brother. Mostly seedlings, or trees in the ground recovering from stress.

Nice little collection you've got there!