5 Easy Steps

We love helping you care for new trees/shrubs through the winter. It can take such little effort and yet have enormous results! Here are our top tips -

1 - All the Way Down

We provide white spiral tree guards as winter protection for all your newly planted fruit and ornamental trees. Use them for the first three winters, until the bark grows strong enough to withstand hungry voles, over-wintering under the snow. When placing the tree guards on, start all the way down - as far down as possible, and twirl them up to chest height.

If you need more guard as the trees grow, let us know.

2 - Stomp it Down

Voles love to tunnel through the soft underlayers of the snow, where they are are protected and invisible, and nibble around the base of young trees with soft bark. Most times, you will never know they are there! To stop them, head out after deep snowfalls and stomp-stomp all around the base of the new trees. This makes the snow hard and uncomfortable to tunnel through, and gives you a chance to check around the base of each tree.

This also makes it more difficult for bunnies to sit on top of high snowfall and reach small-diameter branches, where they prefer to nibble.

3 - Shake it Off

Whenever possible, shake off the snow and ice that collects on the branches. This helps them not end up bent or snapped. If there are a lot of heavy berries that get heavier when covered in ice (for example, on young aronia shrubs), snip those off for the first few winters, until the shrub is strong enough to bear their weight.

4 - Take it Off

Once the snow melts, it is essential to take the white spiral tree guard off each tree. Otherwise, the moisture trapped inside each guard will create ideal conditions for disease, and you will not be able to keep an eye on the lower section of the trunk, where insects like to burrow.

Keep the spiral guards rolled up for the following winter, and let us know if you need more.

5 - Protect from Bunnies + Deer

Over the winter, rabbits and deer are drawn to nibbling on young shrubs and trees. Where needed, we install protection around each shrub/tree.

Black polyethylene Tree Guard or hardware cloth stapled to wooden stakes can protect shrubs. Both are easy to install in the fall, when the ground is still soft.

In areas with heavy deer population, we install a barrier of 6-7’ tall of welded wire around each tree, held strong by u-posts hammered into the ground. We install the welded wire with a large enough diameter that it allows 3 years of protection, even as the tree grows.

When planting fruit trees in areas with heavy deer population, we make sure the protection is installed and ready before even planting the trees, to ensure that the fruit trees are 100% protected. Since fruit trees are planted in early spring, when the earth is first thawing, this means installing the protection the previous fall. To do this, it is essential to understand the mature size of each tree, based on the rootstock, and the flow of access between each tree.

Please be in touch with any questions!

We are happy to walk you through any of this, or provide additional support.