Don’t use solid plastic tree trunk protectors if you can afford plastic mesh protectors. I’ve been using the solid white plastic tree protectors for going on 4 years now. While they work fine for trunk protection, they also make a nice home for ants to build nests and do what ants do under cover. This style of protector seems to encourage ant nests near the trunk under the tree where they are used.
I’ve used the heavy mesh plastic trunk protectors and loved them. I started to use them in '08. After my trees grew up in the mid-teens, I trashed them or sold em off with the deer cages that I also sold off. I only kept 4 or 5 mesh protectors and zero deer cages.
I wish I had kept all that stuff, but I didn’t realize that trees die, trees don’t work out, wind blows trees over and on and on. In other words…you are never done with your orchard.
This time around, when planting 28 trees over the last few years, I bought the cheaper, solid white plastic tree protectors at Menards. They are a great value and they even have 2 sizes. But you may have ant issues, and your trunk sometimes stays damp if your protector is too tight for the tree.
The only issues I had with the mesh tree protectors are…
I wasn’t mindful and one of the trunk protectors grew into the tree and I could not get that little piece of plastic cut loose.
Sometimes the mesh protector can rub soft bark from wind or whatever and abrade the tree.
The mesh protectors are $$ and the shipping is $$.
Never having used the things (I use round remesh cages held to the ground with homemade 12 gauge staples which are roughly 9 inches in length), I’m wondering whether placing a brick or a rock under one side to support it off of the ground would decrease the likelihood that ants build a nest plus increase the airflow, preventing other issues that might come with the non-ventilated design.
I’ve used vented tree tubes for over 20 years. Zero issues with ants. Wasps do love building nests in them though. The wasp larva will attract coons and bears, I’ve got a number of tubes with tooth holes in them and others have been destroyed. If I remember to hit the tubes with wasp spray, no issues.
I bought and used 200 of the mesh tubes 15 years or so ago. They worked well for a year. Then, it was a constant battle to keep limbs from growing thru the mesh. I gave up on mesh tubes after the 3rd year.
I have a hundred young trees with Leonard tubes on them. The insect spray I use to control peach and apple borers on the trunk goes down the tube and will take care of ants as well.
My county puts these expensive mesh ones around all the trees they plant and just leaves them abandonmed for the tree to outgrow and throw them off. I scoop them up. Sometimes they’re broken, they’re always stretched out, but you just zip tie them together. I’m sure if anyone ever did come to get them, they would just go to a landfill.
Never heard of the vented tubes. Look interesting, but I will stick with mesh as a first choice. My trees are 7 - 9 feet when meshed. I don’t put tree protectors where the branches will grow. I will use half size protectors and go to tall ones as tree grows.
You are lucky with no ants. I’m in the ant capitol, it seems.
