By Daisy Bowie-Sell

Published: Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 12:00 am

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Tree guards are helpful accessories when planting a tree, especially if you live in the countryside and near deer or other large wildlife, or if a tree is planted in an urban area. A tree guard can protect the new bark on saplings from damage from a variety of unwanted sources such as animals, chemicals and garden tool damage in the early years of them being planted.

Why do you need tree guards?

Planting trees is one of the most important things we can do for our local environment. Trees protect us, provide habitats, food for all sorts of wildlife, and help to absorb the vast amounts of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Planting a tree in your garden or local area is a win-win. And of course, when you first plant a tree it’s not going to be a huge, established specimen. It’ll be a sapling that needs as much care from you as possible as it grows. Depending on where you live and your garden visitors, you may need a little help to do this with a tree guard. Young trees, aged 0-10 years, are very susceptible to being knocked and nibbled by deer, rabbits, foxes and more. A tree guard can provide that little bit of extra protection from clumsy legs, tongues and teeth. By wrapping the tree in a breathable material from the bottom up, you’re giving it an extra chance to get to an established size.

Are tree guards sustainable?

This is a difficult one to answer. We all need to be using less plastic in the garden and the woodland trust stopped using single use plastic tree guards last year. Plastic is, unfortunately, the material most prevalent for tree guard usage and up until recently it was very hard to find biodegradable options on the commercial market. You can find tree guards made from metal, wood and biodegradable materials, but harder materials are inevitably better at tree protection. The Woodland trust’s report on tree guards is very helpful and thorough.

How to make plastic tree guards more sustainable

If you find that none of the more sustainable options work for you, and you have to go for a plastic tree guard, there are a few things you can do to mitigate their environmental impact.

Avoid your tree guard being single use

Tree guards are often created in such a way that they can be hard to use again. Aim to avoid these and if you’re using plastic think about how you can store and care for these guards so you can use them next time you plant a tree, or pass them on to another person.

Recycle

While ideally you’d reuse, if you need to throw away, try to recycle. And this doesn’t necessarily mean shoving it in the recycling box and letting someone else deal with it. Perhaps you can adapt the old tree guard into something helpful you can use in the garden: a cover, matting, a waterproof shelter. If you can’t, then letting it be recycled by the experts is the next best thing.

Here’s our guide on how to plant a tree

The best tree guards for your garden

 

Clear tree guard

These Elixir Gardens Clear Tree Guards are made from hardwearing, clear and unobtrusive PVC plastic, making them perfect for wrapping around sapling and growing trees. They are designed to wrap round a young tree, while allowing for air circulation, via a spiral design that allows the tube to expand with the tree as it grows. The tree guards come in three sizes – We stock our clear tree guards in sizes of 45cm x 4cm and 60cm x 4.5cm. They are also available with tree ties and bamboo canes if your plants need additional support.