Thousands of locally grown trees are set to enhance Denbighshire's biodiversity.

Denbighshire County Council's Local Provenance Tree Nursery in St Asaph is currently nurturing around 24 varieties of trees.

The nursery, which is home to nearly 40,000 trees in varying stages of growth, could potentially create nearly 70 acres of woodland if all the trees mature successfully.

This initiative has been made possible thanks to funding from the Welsh Government through the Local Nature Partnerships Cymru ENRaW project and the Local Places for Nature grant.

The council's biodiversity team employs a local provenance method to gather seeds across the county, which are then grown at the nursery until they are ready for planting on local land.

The nursery's efforts to support tree growth include preserving and enhancing core tree species such as oaks, as well as conserving rare trees like the wild service tree.

Other trees grown on the site include pedunculate oak, sessile oak, sweet chestnut, silver birch, alder, wych elm, and grey willow.

Some of the trees that are ready for planting will help form a new woodland area at the Green Gates Nature Reserve, of which the nursery is a part.

The nursery's work is part of the council's commitment to addressing the climate and ecological emergency declared in 2019.

It aims to increase the county's tree canopy cover to reduce carbon emissions and provide better support for local nature.

In addition to the trees, the nursery has also produced nearly 16,000 wildflowers from county seeds.

The nursery's work is part of the council's commitment to addressing the climate and ecological emergency (Image: Supplied) These will continue to support existing wildflower meadows in Denbighshire through plug planting.

Many of these wildflowers support a variety of wildlife.

For instance, bird's foot trefoil can provide food for 160 species of insects, encouraging shrews and lapwings to visit the plant, thereby enhancing nature's resilience in local communities.

Once planted, they will also add more variety to meadows for local communities to enjoy, learn from, and help maintain and improve biodiversity.

More wildflowers on the meadows also provide greater support to pollinators, which are crucial to the human food supply chain.

Councillor Barry Mellor, lead member for environment and transport, said: "Growing trees takes time and it’s a credit to our biodiversity team and the tree nursery volunteers that we now have 24 species of trees on site that will eventually go back out to tackle the impact of climate change for both residents and our local nature.

"It’s fantastic to think that we have potential acres of woodland sitting at the nursery and I know the hard work is continuing to collect seeds this season from existing local woodlands to help continue to grow this number we have on site."