As any orchard developer or arborist will know, tree guards can be crucial to the growth and development of healthy young trees. These protective structures can be made out of a variety of materials, from wire and mesh to fabric swatches, but all different types aim to reduce the potential for damage to young trees as they go through vulnerable stages of growth and development.
Definition
Tree guards are usually placed around seedlings or very young trees and surround the tree in a circle or square design. Depending on the type of tree and the type of damage expected from the region’s weather and climate, the guard can be made of a solid material like wire or mesh fabric.
For example, fruit-bearing orchards often use a square-based design with mesh fabrics to shield young trees against high winds. This allows the trees to survive while young and get a good head start on their growth periods.
The more robust wire tree guards can also shield against predators and are common in areas where herbivorous animals like young tree bark that is more nutritious or easier to chew than older, more dense trees.
Benefits
Tree guards are an invaluable resource for protecting young trees, as they help reduce the impact of potential predators, reduce environmental effects, and protect your investment.
Tree guards are easy to set up, as they are simply installed at the same time as the sapling is planted, and can be easily maintained through regular maintenance of the tree. Tree guards help to enhance the survival rate of young trees by protecting these trees when they are in their most fragile time of primary growth.
During the primary growth stage is also when the tree is most likely to use its energy for growth, so having a tree guard to protect the tree allows it to use all its energy in this endeavour, and gives the potential of the biggest tree possible, giving you the best bang for your buck.
Even fragile plants can survive in harsh environments with the help of a tree guard, with the ability to add frames for climbing, and protection from winds and erosion helping to establish plants in even fraught environments. This helps to build a robust and resilient ecosystem of plants, which you can aid with careful selection of planting.
Investment and Maintenance
Tree guards are a low-cost investment, as you only need to buy them once per tree (or less if you can reuse them, depending on your needs and strategy for planting). They are fairly simplistic in design, which makes them easy to use, and simple to make.
Maintaining your tree guards is easy. Metallic or wire tree guards often have the option of coming with a weather-proof coating, which helps to avoid the worst of weather damage. This option is often a good choice, as the tree guard will be outside in the worst of weather conditions 24/7.
You should clean your tree guards whenever you reuse them or brush off the worst of the dirt and grime when you can to get the most life out of them. But tree guards are pretty hardy and very low maintenance overall.
Ultimately, these are a great tool for helping to maintain a healthy landscape, and can be an excellent way to achieve and cultivate a varied garden, even in harsher environments than what would normally be tolerated by certain plants.
Removal and Reuse
One thing to consider with tree guards is that they often don’t come with a latch for opening like a gate; instead, they are placed over the sapling directly. This means tree guards have to be removed either by being lifted over the tree directly or cut away. It is best to remove the tree guard while it can still be lifted off the tree, as most trees will be able to fend for themselves at this point.
However, if you do have to cut away the tree guard it doesn’t make them unusable, and in fact most tree guards can simply be zip-tied back together if you have to cut them off. However, it is worth considering if you have a tree that has reached a certain age, as at a certain point trees will start to grow outwards and need to have their tree guards removed.
As you may know, if a tree reaches an obstacle when it is growing outwards, it will generally grow around and through that obstacle. As a result, if you have a wire tree guard that you have not removed, and the tree reaches the width of the tree guard, you may end up with a very fascinating pattern in the bark!
