We were sick of struggling to get native plantings to grow without a heap of manual work - so we designed the ultimate guard that means plantings can thrive on their own with little intervention

This is a matter of choice, a pre-spray can make a planting area easier to work in however it is not a necessity.

Clearing back any vegetation around the planting spot is always the way to go however.

At Garto HQ we usually don't bother with a pre-spray when doing our own plantings.

Typically one - two years however it's always a case of how mature the planting has become since it was planted.

You will find this varies a lot from planting site to site, species etc.

The question is will this planting survive on its own once I take the guard off?

Each guard comes with three steel pegs to fix them to the ground. Alternatively you can use bamboo or other stakes - just put them on an angle if you do

Make sure you close the lip by overlapping the guard when you peg them down. This stops the light getting in which allows weed growth.

When you are doing a large planting, lay the guards out upside down, that way you can see which have been planted and which are still yet to be dealt with.

We are a bunch of kiwi farmers who designed NZ's best tree guard. We are based in Southland and Christchurch but we ship nationwide!