Plant protection
At Rymer Trees, we’re serious about tree protection. Why? Because it plays a huge role in the establishment of trees. But you might be wondering, why have we been outsourcing guards and stakes instead of stocking them ourselves? Well, we didn’t want to endorse a product without giving it some serious thought. We wanted feedback from a couple of seasons before we made a decision.
We’ve seized every opportunity to test new types of tree guards. We’ve also spoken with suppliers and customers to gather their thoughts on the matter. So far, we think the biodegradable options are fantastic but incredibly expensive. We recognise that the market needs to be driven to eventually bring the prices down of said guards, but our projects tend to be massive and/or government-aided, so budgets are very important.
That being said, I (Harry) only use biodegradable options in my own garden. The Rainbow Terra range is incredible, but also the most expensive. My favourite guard is the Ezee Tree cardboard guard as they pack flat, and are reasonably priced. It would seem I’m the only one that likes them though – every other piece of feedback I’ve had about them has been negative. What’s great about both of these options is they degrade into a mushy gloopy mess, not into lots of tiny pieces that blow around everywhere and get lodged in animals’ gullets.
A lot of the projects we are involved in require hedging. Typically, people would use spiral guards as they are low profile, cheap, and easy to remove - although when was the last time you saw a hedge without 20-year-old spiral guards still entwined? The standard spiral guard is made of nasty plastic that becomes brittle in the sun and shatters, so although it looks like they break down, they actually just create thousands of microplastics. This composition is chosen because there’s very little in the way of support for the spirals, they’re essentially a piece of ribbon that’s been twisted into shape. There are some biodegradable options for spirals, but they tend to collapse in on themselves fairly quickly and are ludicrously expensive.
We have found that both the Tubex Easywrap range, and the Defender+ range offer sturdy, slimline, and reasonably priced alternatives. They are also both recyclable (https://tubex.com/sustainability/tree-shelter-collection-recycling-programme/). The Easywraps seem to be easier to remove, but the Defenders offer better protection and are easier to reuse, so you could go with either option.
We have decided to become stockists of the Defender+ range. I have already given you a few reasons as to why we think they’re best, but there are more. They pack flat, so you can fit 3x or 4x more guards per pallet, which makes a huge saving on haulage costs and impacts. Having done a lot of work with them now, I can see that they’ll also be the easiest to gather up for reusing on the next planting project you have. They have a 7-year lifespan, so you should be able to get a few projects worth of use out of them. They also don’t require ties of any sort, yet they don’t sit against the tree trunk – I found this to be so helpful when helping a client protect their trees a few weeks ago (the client was blown away by the guards too). We also found they were nearly the most requested tree guard, and we figured if we became stockists, we could offer an even better price to our customers! With all of this in mind, we will of course still supply any guards that you may want, and will supply the canes or stakes required to support the guards.
