Fruit Trees Planted

[Jstpssng]

I need to protect them from mice in winter, they burrow under the snow and girdle the trees. I've been using the plastic spiral trunk protectors but have to take them off every spring for the reasons yomax gave... last winter I didn't get them put back on so had to go out and shovel the snow away from the trunks after every storm.
This fall I'm putting up 1/4" mesh hardware cloth so that I can leave it on all year.

 

[oosik]

Back 40 years or so we had a small orchard. I just pulled the last six apple trees and chipped them last year. Our problems were not so much the deer. They would come thru - taste one leaf - move on. They were far more interested in the garden we had planted.

Our battles were with the pocket gophers. They would eat the young roots back to the main trunk - killing the young tree. We dug large holes - lined the holes with broken glass - planted the young trees - crossed our fingers.

Then we found a product that REALLY helped. Root baskets. Rather than broken glass - drop a root basket into the large hole - keeps the gophers away from the roots until they get bigger and no longer tasty.

Root basket - a preformed wire mesh basket that fits right into hole. Does require that you dig a somewhat ovoid shaped hole. But that's little problem if it saves a tree.