#BonsaiNews: What have I done?!?! 85 seeds of seven different species on the way!

#BlackFriday poses a serious risk to all shoppers, irrespective of what you are buying, you are probably not giving much thought to what follows that religious hand movement you've developed over the years ever since getting your first credit card - it's instantaneous. It happens in a second, and then all hell breaks loose.

That was me this morning when I saw that my favorite online seed store was offering up to 20% off all of their seeds, including ones I've been waiting for to become available, and of course, they become available on Black Friday - for those unaware, Black Friday is an annual thing where most shops offer unbelievable discounts. Careful though, some will still try and screw you for your money.

Not Seeds for Africa though - best value for money I've ever seen when it comes to seeds, and they even give you free stuff with each order. I've managed to grow and entire veggie garden since I started ordering from them - unfortunately the monkeys keep getting into the veggies before I can.

OK, talk is cheap and I've got a lot of fessing up to do:

5 seeds of the African Baobab;
10 seeds of the Sugar Maple (acer saccharum);
15 seeds of the Red Swamp Maple (acer rubrum);
15 seeds of the Japanese Maple (acer palmatum atropurpereum - try and say this really fast);
10 seeds of the Chinese Redbud (cercis chinensis);
10 seeds of the Chinese Dogwood (cornus kousa chinensis); and,
20 seeds of the American Sweetgum (liquidambar styraciflua).

Forget pleading insanity, I should have been locked up in the darkest pit on earth, maybe the same hole Bane and Batman spent some time in, just to avoid the catastrophic consequences I've unleashed today.

I am quite literally out of every single type of growing medium that I need to try and make these seeds grow. Fortunately, I have the entire weekend ahead of me.

I have an appointment to photograph a local 'chief' along with members of the local water department today - this is a signing agreement between the two parties which will allow for the construction of a dam wall which is expected to cost some R2,894 - billion. That's about $41035096.78

Construction of the dam is only scheduled for 2020 and is expected to be completed by 2023.

Long story short, after I am done with that, I have planned to go to the nursery in Illovo to get some more stock in terms of river sand, perlite, vermiculite, sphagnum moss and Canadian peat moss. I'll probably get some more of the others and, if they have a Black Friday sale I'll probably buy a few trees as well. Please dear almighty whichever one will listen stop me from spending more money. Bonsai..........

So I already know how to grow most of these trees however, past experiences with both the chinese dogwood, chinese redbud and liquidambar styraciflua have gone awry. I failed miserably to germinate these seed so for once, I'm going to closely re-examine exactly where I went wrong and most probably, it was because I was too impatient.

This is the sin of most bonsai lovers, patience is not something most of us have.

Now, since I am a bit clued up, I wanted to share the guidance on germinating these seeds now, but since I know better ever since joining Steemit, I'll instead be documenting the entire process and once ready, will post an article on each on individually.

In the meantime, below are some of the images I managed to find resembling what each seed could look like as a bonsai in many, many years.

Liquidambar styraiflua:

Acer rubrum:

Japanese Red Maple:

Baobab:

Chinese Redbud:

Chinese Dogwood:

Sugar Maple:

Happy Steeming!

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