Girdling -- how much is too much?

Hi! I've searched the forums for examples of girdling but what I'm really looking to find out is if the damage on my specific trees is extensive enough that I should cut back their tops, maybe try a bridge graft or if I should see what happens. The trees are only a year old (or two -- not sure how it's counted -- planted bare-root stock from Stark Bros this spring). I have four trees, I've been meaning to get tree guards but our local nursery was out and it fell off the to-do list. Here are the two worst ones.

I've just made guards out of chicken wire and applied them, I took these photos beforehand. So I'm hoping there won't be any more damage beyond this.

I'm posting two different views of two trees each. The apple tree is surrounded by skirted wool and the peach tree is not. It's a little hard to tell in the photos -- the apple is mostly damaged only above the graft and the peach is damaged both above and below but probably not girdled below.

So given the photos, what do you think? Neither looks completely and totally girdled, so I have hope that they may just struggle on through by themselves. However, I worry that they will use up all their energy and then die back without reestablishing enough cambium to survive. In that case, maybe better to lop them off so they can put all their stored energy into growing a new trunk. With such young trees, lopping seems like the more preferred method as opposed to something like a bridge graft, but I would also be open to that. In any case I will be collecting some scionwood, although I hadn't intended to yet, just to keep the genetics around.

These are my first fruit trees. I didn't think the rabbits would be going for bark yet ... I won't make that mistake again!

Hi Griff; Welcome to Permies!
I am not very  knowledgeable about  your trees other than to say its worth a try to save them.
I suspect there might be a wrap you could use to help them.

In the meantime... if you take a 3' piece of 4" white water/sewer pipe and split it lengthwise .
You then fit it around your saplings and use duct tape to hold the two halves  together .
I have been using that method for rodent proofing for years.
Works great! Give it a try.

They can be safely ignored till spring. My guess is that the peach will grow fine, and that the apple will send up shoots from below where the gnawing happened.

Grrr! That's frustrating. I've had damage from both mice (meadow voles) and porcupines over the years.

What I've found is that unless they are completely girdled, trees will come back from a surprising amount of damage.

If the apple sends out shoots below the graft, these will be give you a hardy but less desireable crabapple-ish fruit.

Since there are leaves on the ground, I assume they are dormant now. If so, I believe the current wisdom is to leave them alone.

But: perhaps your supplier offers a 1-year survival warranty. Some do. Maybe worth checking?

Thank you to all posters so far! Joseph, thanks for weighing in -- it's reassuring to hear that the peach seems likely to make it. That one is my favorite. It occurred to me that I don't know if it's possible for the apple to send up shoots above the graft but below the damage. If there are shoots, will they be rootstock? Will it sense it if the trunk above is toast and prioritize shoots? I tried to look for more info on this but didn't find much. It seems fairly deep into the if-else tree.


Douglas, thank you! I hope both of them do come back. Also, the nursery does offer a one-year satisfaction guarantee. I will call them and see if they'll replace for this. It's obviously not their fault! But if they'll send free trees to keep me happy I won't say no to them. It's Starks Bros so they are huge and doing fine.

Thomas, thanks for the guard idea. These ones are at my parents' house and have to be pretty, but I will be starting my own orchard next spring and that sounds like a great idea, or that black ridged pipe people use -- especially since my boyfriend is a plumber and I bet he could get me some scraps.