Each year in early spring, the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) Forestry Program team maintains tree planting projects that are part of the Croton Watershed Trees for Tributaries Program, otherwise known as Trees for Tribs. This blog demonstrates the different types of maintenance activities we do depending on site conditions and the age of the plantings.
Each year in early spring, the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) Forestry Program team maintains tree planting projects that are part of the Croton Watershed Trees for Tributaries Program, otherwise known as Trees for Tribs. You can learn more about WAC’s Trees for Tribs program using this link. This blog demonstrates the different types of maintenance activities we do depending on site conditions and the age of the plantings.
When tree seedlings are planted, each one gets a tree tube and a support stake to provide protection from deer browse and strong winds. When we return for annual maintenance, we cut vines, multiflora rose, and other competing vegetation.
Removing vines that are wrapped around planted saplings and their tree tubes.
Tyler Van Fleet uses long-handled pruning shears to cut and remove briars around planted saplings.
We also remove debris like leaves, vegetation, mouse nests, and wasp nests from the tree tubes. We ensure that zip ties and support stakes are still sturdy. We prune branches following the how-to resources shown in the Maintain Planted Trees activity on MyWoodlot.
Jessica Alba replaces the wooden support stake next to a tubed tree.
This branch was pruned just above the height of the tree tube to promote upward tree growth.
Eventually trees outgrow their tubes and we graduate them to bark protectors, which protect the trees from buck rubs. Bark protectors are four to five feet tall, made of a rolled-up heavy plastic mesh, and they can be zip-tied around the base of planted trees.
If you don’t have a bark protector handy, but the tree is busting out of the tube at the base, you can cut open the perforated tube from the ground up until the tree is no longer pinched. This will prevent moisture build-up and continue to protect the tree until you can get a bark protector installed.
A split-open plastic tree tube opened along its perforation revealing leafy river birch bark. Two bark protectors lie in the background.
A bark protector installed on a sapling two or three inches in diameter.
Maintenance of older plantings typically involves loosening zip ties that attach bark protectors to the trees.
This sapling’s bark protector only wraps around half the tree trunk. The lowest zip tie was removed and the upper ones were loosened to allow for growth.
Once trees are strong enough to support themselves in the wind, we remove the white oak support stakes. We also trim any branches that could be reached by hungry deer.
We try to leave the bark protectors on as long as possible, as long as they are not restricting tree growth. Sometimes we zip tie multiple bark protectors together to fit larger diameter trees. Despite this effort, trees with bark protectors still get buck rubs on occasion.
A buck rubbed this tree so vigorously with its antlers that the bark protector fell to the ground!
Rows of planted trees forming a riparian buffer at Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown Heights, New York, March 2023.
I hope this blog gives you some maintenance tips for your tree planting projects. If you are a landowner or forest steward in the Croton Watershed, and your property has streams, wetlands, lakes, or ponds, and you would like to be considered for a Trees for Tribs planting project, be sure to check out the Croton Trees for Tribs web page. Thanks for reading!
