This year, I started getting into bonsai and as an off shoot I started getting interested in turning trees I had around the house into bonsai. But I didn't think my parents would appreciate me tearing up their landscaping, so I started collecting seeds. I collect a lot of acer palmatum, bloodgoods, but especially small leaf small seed varieties. I collected some japanese black pine, spruce, cornus, princess persimmon, and then I went to the forest behind my house and collected some carpinus virginiana. There are also several female ginkgo trees at my University where I collected seeds from. I read about how to treat the seeds online and most are stratifying in the fridge now, I don't trust squirrels
I don't plan on using all I collect for bonsai, but only the best seeds, especially out of the japanese maples. The seedlings that are expecially vigorous, I might use as root stock to graft scions of dissectum onto. My parents and my grandparents have 5 or 6 different specimen to try out. The rest I may just grow for landscaping or cheap presents XD
From what I've heard, trident maples grow fast from seed, at my club some people in the area have managed to put out 2-3 inch trunk trees in 10 years which is very promising to me.
But I have still bought trees from nurseries and gotten some as gifts so that I'm not just waiting for years to have something to do