We started to remove some of the tree guards from the trees we planted in February 2021.
We selectively removed guards where the stems had grown to the size of the tree guard. The majority of the guards we removed were from silver birch and cherry trees. Occassionally we removed guards from the oak trees.
Overall I think we removed guards from about a third to a half of the trees, but it depended a lot on location, because some species were planted at higher densities in some parts of the woodland.
Next year we will do another round of removals, to remove all the remaining guards.
We haven’t yet got to the patch of alder trees in the SW corner in the wet area. I will be interested to see their growth.
The weather was very hot during the time we were removing the guards, around the 10th July. We opted to get up early in the morning, around 05:30, to do a couple of hours before breakfast.
