I love mountain ash because I think they look great all four seasons. Seed is the best way and they grow fast. To find seedlings just go to a garden area close to a mountain ash and where the birds like to perch and poop and you should find little seedlings in the cultivated soil. To bad you don't live in Canada beacause I could mail you a full box from my front flower bed.
Andre

Fadoodle, in case you don't find seedlings (unlikely), and want to start from seeds, this is the information on Tom Clothier's seed germination database: sow 3months @ 39ºF, move to 70ºF for germination. Like PrairieRoots, though, I have seedlings all over my garden, so you should have no trouble finding one on the mountain that needs adopting! Good luck.

If you want to go ahead with the mountain ash you might wish to consider the fragrance of the flowers.
The domestic mountain ash around here have flowers with a strong and to me unpleasant fragrance.
Ian

Good morning everyone! Fadoodle, if you are seeing red berries right now, I suspect it is native elderberry, as mine are red now, but the mountain ash is not yet. The elderberry should be easy to grow from seed, judging by how many plants there are. I have so many in my yard I've never had to try to grow them from seed--I just dig up a piece of one and plant it where I want it, keeping it well-watered the first summer. It will look dead, but will come back the second year.

You know, Mytime, I think you're right. The mountain ash in downtown Anchorage have developed their red berries, and as I zoom by on my way up the mountain, I just assumed the big shrubs/small trees I was seeing, with similar multiple leaflets and clusters of red berries, was a wild version of the same thing. So today I stopped, picked a leaflet and berry cluster, and looked it up in the Field Guide and it looks like it is elderberry after all. Anyway, they're BOTH beautiful, and if both are easy to grow from seed, I think I'll give them a try. Thanks for all the encouragement! (and info for someone who's just starting to learn all these far north plants.)