Protecting Your Property or Farm: Essential Horticultural Products for Thriving Plants

If you run a horticultural business or an orchard, then you have likely already heard about wire tree guards and the benefits they can give to your young, growing trees. However, if you are just starting out or you’d like to learn more about the latest products, such as welded wire mesh fence panels, then this article is for you.

The Importance of Tree and Plant Protection

Protecting plants is crucial to ensure their health and longevity. This is especially true for young plants, which can often be more vulnerable than their older counterparts when it comes to threats to their health.

Plants need to be protected from a variety of factors, and this can depend on the type of plant you are growing. For instance, trees are particularly prone to issues resulting from wind and weather and are often at risk of being hit by falling objects in the wind, which can result in serious harm to young trees.

At the same time, these trees are often at risk from certain pests and predators. There are many birds and small mammals that prey on young trees because of their nutrient-rich green wood.

For older trees, protection from small animals such as possums, koalas,  wallabies or rats can be just as important. These animals often damage trees by stripping bark or leaves, and can also make homes in the branches, which can result in long-lasting damage or weakness in the tree.  

Finally, diseases can enter trees through damage created by animals. This can result in the tree dying back and a loss of productivity, as well as creating a difficult-to-remove eyesore in the form of a diseased or dead tree.

Using protective products like wire tree guards can help prevent animals from getting access to the tree and can also help protect it from damage and disease. In addition, these tree guards can act as reinforcement for the tree in bad weather and can help mitigate the effects of strong winds in particular.

Highlighting Wire Tree Guards

tree guardWire tree guards are an incredibly durable form of protection for trees and saplings from a variety of their predators. These are customisable wire structures that are constructed from either formed wire or welded mesh of the required dimensions.

Wire tree guards are one of the most affordable options for tree protection, and they can be easily reused or rearranged as saplings grow into more durable trees. They can also be, given the correct machinery, manufactured easily, meaning good availability in times of higher need such as the planting season.

These products are particularly useful in that they are able to withstand the variety of weather often seen in Australia, and they are able to easily weather wind, rain, extreme heat, and drought. Unlike similar wooden products, these guards will be able to withstand heat/rain cycles and are not as fragile as their wooden alternatives.

They are also extremely versatile, able to be created in a range of sizes for strength, as well as being easy to install, move, and rearrange as necessary. You can even cover them with shade cloth while the trees are particularly young or in seasons of high-intensity sunlight, which may cause damage to the leaves.

Another potential advantage of wire tree guards is that they can be used to restrict secondary growth for trees. During primary growth, the tree tends to grow taller without expanding wider very much. Secondary growth comes later and involves the tree putting its energy into growing wider for both stability and the transport of nutrients along the trunk of the tree.

Restricting this growth can be useful in some areas. For example, if you have trees under an overhead shade covering, restricting secondary growth can be a great way to stop the upward trajectory of the tree to avoid disrupting or destroying the shade.

Fruit tree industries often use this technique of disrupting secondary growth once the tree reaches optimal size, as it is a major physiological sink of energy for the tree. This energy is instead directed to growing more abundant and often higher-quality fruit.

These products are extremely easy to use, with a simple installation that only requires staking into the ground and securing with a post or ties.  Given their durability, they can be re-used, lowering the lifetime cost of protection and, therefore, production.

Wire tree guards are also an especially good idea if you have pest problems on the property, such as rabbits. Rabbits like to make dens at the foot of trees and can gnaw on the roots for sustenance when they are breeding.

This sort of damage can cause major issues for the tree, by removing the roots and thus the tree’s ability to absorb water and nutrients from the soil. Wire tree guards are strong enough to withstand the strong teeth of a rabbit and can discourage them from making a home in the roots of your valuable trees.

Deer can also be a huge issue for tree growers, with a tendency to rub on the trees to cause bark damage or to strip the leaves off the trees. By adding a wire guard, the tree can be protected from future damage.

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