This post was inspired by Dave Gillingham's moving story in the Who We Are
thread (which by the way I continue to enjoy immensely, and am very glad to
read each new post there).

Dave's story makes me wonder what the cutoff point is for when a collection
becomes to large to rejoice over every individual plant's new leaf, new
root, and new spike. My collection currently consists of 31 orchids, and I
still watch every one carefully and rejoice over each activity of each
plant.

I know that Claude also does that, and I have the impression that Claude's
collection is somewhat larger than mine, though I'm not sure about that. I
checked Claude's post in Who We Are as well as Claude's Web site, but I did
not see the total number of plants in your collection, Claude?

Anyway, it appears that somewhere between 31 plants (my current number) and
about 200 (Dave's current number) one can no longer keep track of each as an
individual and rejoice in each one. I wonder what the cutoff number is? Of
course, I know that this cutoff will vary somewhat based on the individual's
determination and the amount of time available to spend with plants and
maybe some other variables, but: What is the largest number of orchids in a
collection that a single human being can report keeping track of in an
individualized way, rejoicing over each one's activity?

This is not just a rhetorical question. I really want to know. And then I
will try not to exceed that number if at all possible. Well, probably it
will not be possible since I am an orchid addict and I feel the craving for
new orchids at most a month after the last orchid was bought. But I might
try to postpone the inevitable if I know that exceeding x amount will lead
to a dire consequence such as the de-indivualization of individual orchids.

Joanna