Tree tubes

I want to plant some young bareroot trees this year- hammamelis virginiana, cercis canadensis, and either nyssa slyvatica or an amelanchar species. Mostly shrubby multistemmed plants. We have a lot of deer and rodents around. I was looking at the pros/cons and dimension of the tree tubes. I could make 6ft "tubes" out of 2ft 1/4" hardware cloth and stake them with 1/2" pvc conduit for less than the tree tubes. That would prevent the deer from eating them and the rodents from chewing their way in. The 2ft will roll into about 7-1/2" diameter tube. I guess it wont have the greenhouse effect of the plastic tube but i read some studies that show total stem mass between open grown and tree tube grown is the same anyway. Are there any obvious reasons I shouldnt do this and just use the tubes?

It's worth a shot.  Is there a chance the twigs will start to grow through the mesh?  If so you'll have to keep poking them back in from time to time.

There isn't any reason the hardware cloth won't work, just be sure to stake on at least two sides so it will definitely stay where you put it.
The plastic ones are more for easy mfg. and they might help a bit with a late frost event, other than that, there aren't really any specific reasons to use plastic.

Redhawk

I have used thousands of tubes for my restoration projects and now I'm shifting away from them due to the cost of purchasing them, the issue of getting them to stay put, and the garbage resulting from them.

I had a lot of issues with hard ground combined with wind resulting in the tubes getting messed up. If you are going to use them make sure they are very well secured otherwise they are not worth it.

I use mesh tubes for deer protection - the solid plastic ones are more aimed at protecting against rodents.

For the mesh ones you need to make sure the top of the tree is fully protected. Often this means raising the mesh tubes up about once a year until the top of the tree is above browse height.

For my restoration work I'm shifting to what I call forest islands - circles 30 to 60 feet across. I prep these circles, apply a full layer of mulch, and plant heavily. I'm now looking at installing temp deer fences around each circle that would remain for about 3 years. After 3 years I would remove the fence to use it for a different project.

These fences are cheaper then the tree protectors on a per plant basis.

Not sure if this would be an option for your project but I'm finding the fence is a better option for my projects than the protectors. I'm currently designing a 5 acre restoration project with about 6k plants that will use this method.

Nice advice daron. Im looking at about 30 trees, all with 3 tposts and a 6ft diameter of remesh around each tree. I often think that one fence encompassing the whole "island" of trees would make more sense.

In other areas im using a scattered approach. Maybe one tree every 100 yards. This would have to remain the same.

Wow Darron, thats a lot of planting and land. I dont have that much property to deal with, Im in a suburban type area with 0.8 acre and have to be kind of sensitive toward my neighbors and the township permit deptartment. The back of my lot is kind of wooded, and Id like to expand that a little and improve the mix of species present. We are planning to fence in the whole yard in a year or two, but i think for the 15 or so tree im planning, individual cages will work.

Hi Gilbert,

Your plight inspired me. Interesting to read Daron's take. I planted somewhere around 600 trees in the last year, mixed tube and no tube. Survival rate remains to be totalled but pretty good each side. For the species you are interested in I had amelancier of three varieties. Downy didn't care wouldn't waste a tube. They grew super fast anyhow. Canadensis really liked the tubes, almost double the height in tubes and clearly more wood mass. I don't have nyssa sylvatica but I have the white tupelo (better bee forage) and it seems to love the humidity of the tubes, it's a riparian species.

The other thing is that I deep mulch around the tubes, which gives air space around the trunk but provides a much better soil prep in the area they will eventually root. The ones I could not do this had much more weed/grass pressure in their "donut", which is what I think the elevated growth in the tubes may be related to as well.

Daron Williams wrote:I have used thousands of tubes for my restoration projects and now I'm shifting away from them due to the cost of purchasing them, the issue of getting them to stay put, and the garbage resulting from them.

I had a lot of issues with hard ground combined with wind resulting in the tubes getting messed up. If you are going to use them make sure they are very well secured otherwise they are not worth it.

I use mesh tubes for deer protection - the solid plastic ones are more aimed at protecting against rodents.

For the mesh ones you need to make sure the top of the tree is fully protected. Often this means raising the mesh tubes up about once a year until the top of the tree is above browse height.

For my restoration work I'm shifting to what I call forest islands - circles 30 to 60 feet across. I prep these circles, apply a full layer of mulch, and plant heavily. I'm now looking at installing temp deer fences around each circle that would remain for about 3 years. After 3 years I would remove the fence to use it for a different project.

These fences are cheaper then the tree protectors on a per plant basis.

Not sure if this would be an option for your project but I'm finding the fence is a better option for my projects than the protectors. I'm currently designing a 5 acre restoration project with about 6k plants that will use this method.

Hi did you decide on what type of temp deer fence you are going to use for your islands? What height? Thanks

Id rather spend my money on more trees, plan em too close and let them compete with weeds till they are taller than any weeds, by the time they need thinning out they are pretty good size and potted in a 5 gallon pot they are worth a few $$$
I'm doing this right now  and there is a deer highway going right through the field, there are a few empty spots but most of the 4 yr olds are doing real well and the 1 yr olds I will put stakes next to them this winter just to know where they are

I use tubes because the desert is so tough on young seedlings. They’re a pain in the butt when it comes to weeds and suckering rootstocks, but they’ve really helped me.

Does anyone have experience with tree tubes that can discourage/withstand javelinas?  Hardware cloth is getting very expensive...!

I have a reason hardware cloth won't work, I used it first. The wind basically stripped my trees of all bark because they were getting whipped into the hardware cloth, which is pretty unforgiving. I use trunk guards I bought for .25 at Menards. Of course that was pre-covid inflation so lord knows how expensive they are now.

I see what you are saying, Elle.  We didn't make the hardware cloth into standalone "tubes", rather into rings held in place by rebar - so it is working for us, just very expensive. In our soil it takes two pieces of tall rebar hammered into the ground to secure the hardware cloth ring from javenlina/peccaries.

But this year I have a bunch of seedling trees started, some like palo verde which are easy to start and I harvested the seed myself. So - very cheap!  It seems worth trying to put a lot of them out with different methods, like tree tubes, to see if any of those will be enough to discourage the javelina.  Javelina are like a pig, and will push through most things if you have something they really want.  Rabbits are an issue as well, but easier to discourage.  I'm hoping the javelina won't be as interested in the palo verdes!