Seed hunt in forest to help grow trees

People will be able to grow their own little pieces of the Wyre Forest by hunting out seeds at a woodland festival being held on Saturday and Sinday.

The Seed Gathering Festival will take place at Wyre Forest Visitor Centre, near Bewdley.

It is a family fun event being staged as part of the Grow With Wyre Landscape Partnership Scheme, to get people interested in nature and the local environment.

The free, fun packed event takes place from 11am until 4pm each day, giving people of all ages the chance to search the forest for the seeds that will create the Wyre landscape of the future.

Forest rangers will be on hand to help visitors identify the seeds and plant them in recycled pots to nurture at home or send to be grown in the Forestry Commission's nursery. Seeds to look out for include oak, birch, ash, hazel, field maple, hawthorn and blackthorn as well as rarer varieties such as wild service.

There will also be a Wild Food and Bushcraft Walk, where people can find out about the season's wild foods, learn shelter-building and other survival skills.

Another big part of the event is fruit tree identification, where experts will be on hand to tell people what varieties of fruit they have growing in their garden.

Gail Atkinson, Project Manager for the Forestry Commission and the Wyre Forest Landscape Partnership, says: "We need enough seeds to plant at least 500 trees – so the more helping hands the better!"