The secret is doming (if small, or trays of propagation babies) or wicking (self watering). Most of those were gesneriads like African Violets and Streptocarpus which are easy to grow and propagate. Adeniums, cacti and orchids by comparison need little watering if humidity is high and can go outdoors spring through autumn.
The real trick is staying on top of watching out for bugs and acting fast if something breaks out. Repotting is however time consuming and a constant chore about four times a year. I am down to about 1000 plants currently. I used to sell a lot of plants but since we moved out of our home last autumn, I had to cut way, way back and disperse many flats of plants through sales or clubs in Atlanta.
Also, my teenage son has also been a huge help with repotting, monthly cleaning of plants and trays, and it's been fun to teach him about hybridizing and vegetative propagation. Been a great way for him to earn a little money, helping me pack and ship plants. I imagine after all the plants and seed I imported that he knows more about phytosanitary certificates and customs inspections than most people.
Likely now I am not focused on selling plants anymore I will probably thin out my collection one more time before we finish moving. I have a couple of big spring shows in Atlanta coming up before we finish relocating up to NC.
---------- Post added at 11:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 AM ----------
In all fairness it should also be noted that I dabble in hybridizing of multiple kinds of plants. So even with only planting very small samples of seed from my crosses, or seed I may have gotten from other hybridizers, you can easily have several hundred, or even a few thousand seedlings, without taking up much space. But I don't 'count' them until I have culled and potted up plants individually to grow on.
So for example, I have 350 adenium seedlings at the moment going into their second year's growth. As they begin to bloom, I'll thin out most of them and only keep about 10% or less of the best plants.
If I cross streptocarpus, I might get thousands of seed from a single pod but I'll only plant 20 to 30 seeds. Unlike orchids however, I can go from seed to first flowering in about 5 months instead of taking a couple of years. I can easily have a couple of hundred maturing streps in a single 10 by 20 inch flat.
As of last summer I had 75 flats under lights plus my potted tropical plants that would go out outdoors on my partly shady back deck. I never count my in ground plants, just the ones I over winter indoors.
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