A NATURE festival has launched across Shropshire featuring events in Oswestry.

The Love Nature festival kicks off a month long series of events showing the solutions for the climate and nature crises.

It began on Saturday and will feature up to 20 different organisations that will show the people of Shropshire how to connect with nature.

The festival will run until August 21 and is supported by Zero Carbon Shropshire, Shropshire Wildlife Trust, Shropshire Good Food Partnership and the Lottery Heritage Fund.

Festival chair, Liz Knowles, said: "We have been absolutely delighted with the response to the first few days of the festival. We have had a really enthusiastic response so far.

"We sense a real desire from people to make changes to protect our natural environment and we hope this festival will show them how they can do that. Just a few small changes can make all the difference."

The events this week included an open day at the Tom Adam’s Fruit Tree Nursery at Weston Rhyn, the first appearance of The Grow Your Own Roadshow in Oswestry, and an open day at a wildlife garden in Church Stretton, plus a talk on the importance of the biodiversity of roadside verges at Pontesbury Pavilion with Janet Cobb, chair of the Restoring Shropshire’s Verges Project.

The festival moves to the churchyard with a Love Your Burial Ground Day at St Cuthberts’ Church, Clungunford on July 30 from 2pm.

The Grow Your Own Roadshow returns to Oswestry’s Bailey Head on Saturday, July 30, plus Derek Crawley, lead author of the Atlas of the Mammals of Great Britain and Northern Island 2020 and Chair of Staffordshire Mammals Group, will speak in a webinar on harvest mice and the Mammal Society Harvest Mouse survey on Tuesday, August 2.

On Thursday, August 5, the Os Nosh community kitchen project in Oswestry opens up its community garden.

Mrs Knowles said that this was a snapshot of events across the county with something for all ages, abilities and interests.

Further information on the festival is available at https://www.shropshirelovenaturefestival.org/ or by emailing shropshirelovenature@gmail.com.

Information on Zero Carbon Shropshire is available at https://zerocarbonshropshire.org/