Seed gathering day reaps growth boost for tree nursery

Volunteers have helped collect over a thousand acorns in a day to regenerate local biodiversity.

Denbighshire County Council’s Biodiversity team recently led a seed collecting day local to the Council Tree Nursery based at St Asaph.

The team opened the day and others up to those interested in making a difference for their own local environment.

Representatives from the Council, the Wildlife Trust, Cofnod and a group of volunteers joined forces to collect acorns from local veteran oak trees.

Over 1,200 acorns were collected and taken back to the Council’s Tree Nursery at St Asaph and potted to grow at the site before been distributed into Denbighshire’s biodiversity.

During the seed gathering day, those taking part also helped record the species and measurements of trees which will be added to the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory as veteran trees, many of which are several hundred years old.

The details were also added to a custom made monitoring app designed by the biodiversity team which will allow them to know the origin of every tree grown to help track from seed to final planting location.

Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We are really grateful to the volunteers and the organisations who helped us achieve this fantastic boost for our tree nursery project.

“Supporting and improving our local biodiversity is extremely important to us after declaring a climate and ecological emergency in 2019. All the volunteer support to help us grow the tree nursery project has been amazing and I look forward to seeing the site grow and contribute more towards preserving our local biodiversity.”