Tree Guards — A Pointless Pox Across the Country?
Over 200 million tree guards have been used in the UK. Are they needed, or are they a waste of time and money, becoming uncollected litter and a blot on the landscape?
You may have never really thought much about tree guards. They are as common and bland as traffic cones, seemingly necessary plastic tubes that we just accept as part of modern life. But if you think about their actual purposelessness and pointlessness for a minute you will see them as just another symptom of the of the misguided modern world.
Their purpose is for protection, to give the tree a chance to grow rather than being eaten. Deer, rabbits and voles do eat very young trees, preferring to eat the new tender and tasty shoots. Animals browse and graze over large areas, but if a few get nibbled, so what? In areas of high wildlife, yes there are times when they are useful. But in many cases where there are no animals nearby the guards are just not needed. They are just used by default. We haven’t always used them, they are just another item in the age of single use disposable plastic. Plants have grown pretty well for the last billion years without any human assistance. But for the last 30–40 years we’ve decided that they need a little plastic tube to help them.
After planting, one of three things results. The plant survives and lives its life trying to grow whilst living with an unnatural brace which distorts and mutates the natural growth like a growing child forced to wear the same clothes until they burst out of them. The second result is the young tree has just died, leaving a remnant inside the degrading tube, often leaning over like a forgotten gravestone. The third thing is that the tube is removed and a happy tree lives.
The most common result is that they are just left because it’s not in the contract to remove them. They become plastic rubbish deliberately and professionally placed and paid for, ironically in the name of nature and the environment. Guards are left for years, even decades, and often sit there with nothing but a dead twig inside them.
One exception for their use is in the case of the strimmer killer. Personal experience of this came after planting a collection of apple trees donated to a school and not using guards. The grounds maintenance team strimmed the grass and strimmed the trees, killing them.
The guards cost money, often as much as the tree whip itself. They make planting slower as the process involves two steps instead of one which adds to the cost in time and therefore money. So why not just plant extra instead, or replant if needed if some get eaten. After all you would have to return to remove the guards after a few years. In larger areas it is more economical to fence off an entire area to prevent animals from entering rather than spend time and money on fitting hundreds of guards.
Trees are planted by companies replanting after a new development, returning nature back where it has been removed. Even in urban new shopping centres in cities that haven’t seen a rabbit since 1950 they are used. The guards give a false sense of security, the perception that they are needed and doing good, as visual evidence that the worthy task of planting has been undertaken and the relevant boxes have been ticked. Studies show that planting without shelters is the preferable option and the National Trust and Woodland Trust are taking this on board, but they are still being used in huge numbers everywhere else.
Tubes aren’t cleared up by rubbish collectors because they are seen as having a purpose. So they sit there forever, some slowly becoming brittle, so that if they are eventually removed, they shatter into dozens of small pieces, eventually becoming microplastics. Farmers use them around fields for hedging. I have removed hundreds of forgotten guards, each has a history and an age. Some I have found around trees that are probably 20 years old, with remnants of tubes where the trunk has engulfed and trapped it.
We’ve banned plastic straws, but we are still using the far bigger plastic straw by the million, and deliberately and professionally scattering them all over the land. Sometimes there is rubbish surrounding them. The rubbish was thoughtlessly thrown away, whereas the tree guard was paid for and put there deliberately, often with taxpayer money.
Once you see them, you see them everywhere. Especially in winter when the bare plants reveal their plastic strangle tube. We have become accustomed to seeing this everywhere, it is accepted and has become normalised. Some places, such as motorway verges have them, patch after patch of pale green tubes repeated mile after mile. Unlike litter, plastic tubes have become accepted.
Compound all of the above reasons for not using guards and then add the fact that they are just ugly. A creeping and growing ugly plastic plague despoiling the landscape. All 200 million of them, as fake as fake grass or fake breasts.
The next time you are in a car, bus, train, or out for a walk, play a game of spot the plastic tube. Once you begin to see them, they appear like an invasion everywhere. The grass and plant verges should be grass and plant verges, not grass, plant and plastic verges.
Evidently there is nothing in place making sure they are removed after a certain time. There should always be a clause to remove tubes after a set period. This in itself would add 50% to the planting price, which would result in them either always being removed as per the contract, or more likely not being used in the first place after a quick cost/benefit analysis.
It is an offence to leave litter. Councils and the Highway Agencies regularly remove litter from road sidings, but tree tubes aren’t seen as litter. After a period of three or four years they are have served their (dubious) purpose, are redundant and become litter.
We used to see carrier bags hanging from trees across the country, they disappeared virtually overnight once the compulsory single use charge was introduced. The same could happen with tree guards. They should be removed or the planters should face fines for littering, the larger the amount of litter, the larger the fine. It would only take one public case to succeed for a precedent to be set leading to a nationwide clear-up happening.
Hopefully we’ll learn from our mistakes, the tubes will disappear, become history and we can have our countryside back.
Originally published at http://jonausten.wordpress.com on March 9, 2023.