Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

05/26/2015 ---------- I ordered this item yesterday despite reading the reviews about the problems many people had with germination. I was disappointed to hear about so many of those problems because I just love cherry trees like this one. Being that I am a scientist by training, I've decided to undertake a scientific experiment of sorts to see if I can help all of you find better success with these seeds. I will update this review as I make progress, but I will start by giving a neutral 3-star review. To begin, I searched through botanical literature to find an optimal germination technique for this species. I found an article by Pipinis et al. (PIPINIS, Elias, Elias MILIOS, Olga MAVROKORDOPOULOU, Christina GKANATSIOU, Maria ASLANIDOU, & Pavlos SMIRIS. "Effect of Pretreatments on Seed Germination of Prunus mahaleb L.." Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca [Online], 40.2 (2012): 183-189. Web. 26 May. 2015) that describes various strategies they used to find better success in germinating these seeds. The take-home message from that article is that an application of scarification, then soaking in a gibberellic acid solution, followed by 1-month of cold stratification offers the highest germination success rates. In more plain terms, what that means is nicking the seed coat, soaking the seeds in a 1000-2000ppm solution of gibberellic acid for 24 hours, then keeping the seeds slightly moist in the fridge for a month before planting. That may sound intimidating and inaccessible, but have no fear -- you can buy gibberellic acid for cheap right here on Amazon at (http://www.amazon.com/SuperGrow-Gibberellic-Acid-Starter-Kit/dp/B0098R2F5E) and I will describe below how to make that solution. According to (http://www.crfg.org/tidbits/gibberellic.html), that means using 125mg of gibberellic acid in 1/4 of a cup of water. That is probably impossible to measure for non-scientists at home, so aim for using 1/8 of the bottle of gibberellic acid if you buy it from the source I mentioned above (that bottle only contains 1 gram of gibberellic acid, so 1/8 of it is exactly 125mg). That will give you a solution of exactly 2000ppm. Since it's recommended to use between 1000-2000ppm, try to err on the side of using less in order to stay in that range. Once you have your solution, you can soak the seeds for 24 hours after you give them a few little nicks with a knife to let the solution really soak into the seed. After that, follow the instructions set forth at (http://www.datreestore.com/cost.html) to cold-stratify for 1 month. Following all of these instructions should result in a germination success rate between 95-97%, and the seeds should germinate after about 7-10 days (I got this information from Table 4 in the aforementioned scientific article -- read the gory details here: http://notulaebotanicae.ro/index.php/nbha/article/viewFile/7887/7022). I'll try my own hand at this and keep you updated on how it turns out! UPDATE 5/30/2015 ---------- I received the cherry blossom seeds and bonsai kit on the 28th and I received the gibberellic acid today. I will soak the seeds for 24 hours starting tonight. The instructions included in the gibberellic acid kit are much better than what I provided above (as they included a scoop that carries a known weight, so no guesswork needed), so definitely use that kit if you want to use gibberellic acid. I will probably use a 1000ppm solution to soak my seeds in, and then after they soak, into the fridge they go in a baggie of moist vermiculite for a month (or less if I see germination). I'll keep you updated. UPDATE 06/06/2015 ---------- I've been keeping the seeds in the fridge in a baggie of moist vermiculite. I placed them in there 6 days ago and it looks like at least one of the seeds is showing signs of activity. This happens sometimes when stratifying seeds. It's a good sign of course -- I just hope they all follow suit! UPDATE 07/21/2015 ----------- So far, I have had no luck with getting these seeds to germinate even with the added effort I put into the process. All 9 seeds I received were treated the same way as I described above. There's a distinct possibility that I did not scarify the seed coat hard enough for the gibberellic acid to penetrate the seed, but otherwise, I think I treated the seeds pretty well. I will update my initial review to 2 stars, keeping in mind that the seeds may need longer to germinate and/or to account for any errors I may have made in pre-treating them.