Protex^® Pro/Gro Solid Tube Tree Protectors

I ordered 6' Protex® Pro/Gro Solid Tube Tree Protectors and found them to be perfect!!! We planted sawtooth oak and chinese chestnut trees and put these tubes around them and they are working great. Trees are now leafed out. The tubes were lightweight and easy to assemble. Will definitely order again.

I’m in south east Texas. I bought these in the spring of this year. Assembling does take a few minutes. I was concerned about the tabs not holding, so I used duct tape at the top and bottom to help hold together. All of the seedling Live oaks have done great, growing over 3’ since the spring. The red & bur oaks have grown good, but not as much. All seedlings have survived the dry summer with the help of watering some. I’m very pleased with these and would recommend using them.

I find Protex tree "tubes" to be utterly useless. They are shipped flat and have to be rolled up and attached to form a tube. There are tabs that have to be punched loose and inserted in a slot. This can be quite difficult in cool weather. The tabs DO NOT stay attached on their own in snow and wind. After putting them all together at planting time you will be back reattaching the tabs and duct taping them in 6 months. Not worth the savings. Spend the money on good quality tubes and save yourself an annual hassle.

This product is junk... the stamps for the slots and tabs are misaligned and in some cases clipped on the edge of the material. The tubes do not stay together... had to staple and tape them to keep them together. When I called the company, they said just return them... not an option as I purchased them to keep wildlife from eating newly planted trees... The tubes also are very diffcult to put together... it took hours to assemble 50 tubes... I would not recommend this product.

I have used tree tubes for many years. I ordered these thinking it would be great to be able to clean them out each year without having to slip them down over the trees to put them back on. BUT we get direct winds here on our hill and they don't stay closed in the wind. I had to punch extra holes to zip tie them shut. Defeats the purpose. I will go back to the preformed tubes.

The 60" one work pretty well just make sure you have a 60" support or the tops may crumple in high wind. Also bury the bottom

We love these!!! Fantastic survival rates on our trees, even in our sandy soil, with minimal watering. Do listen to the instructions and bury the bottoms in the soil, or else critters will have a much easier time slipping them off to munch down delicious leaves, and you won't have the same protection at the bottom. We have wasted lots of time and effort with bamboo stakes, which are easily snapped over by deer and horses. Ditto with the red "steel core" plant stakes sold by hardware stores. Those things are hollow and also easily bent over. We are in the process of replacing those with 5' pieces of rebar as the stakes, with very long and thick zip ties. If you can afford to do that from the start with, I highly recommend it. I like to roll them up lengthwise first to get the shape going, and slip the tabs in starting from the center, making sure to tuck the edge of the tab side under the side with the slots, as others have pointed out. No issues with them blowing open. Get these!

These work great! I live in the high desert in central Oregon, so very very little rain. I planted a crab apple twig from arbor foundation. It is growing amazingly well and is protected from the deer and rabbits as a bonus. I thought I had killed another tree that I didn't replant soon enough, but I left it to see if something would come up and it did. Now I have a tiny Hawthorne growing in one of these. Very helpful!

I absolutely love these tree tubes. Trying to get seedlings to grow good on my property has been tough with all the animals hammering them to stumps. I like these tubes particularly for the the way they are fastened closed. I can clean the competitive weeds and remove debris by just opening the lower half of the tube, and no more having to feed the tube over the tree and possibly damaging the bark or branches.

I've been using these tubes for about five years with good results. They take time to assemble. You need to pinch the tabs to keep the tabs in place. I like that I am able to open the tube to control weeds and side branches, and then close again. Once my trees are above deer browse, I remove the tube and move to the next tree to protect. If only out of the top of the tube for a year or two, you will have to stake for support. Very pleased with my results.

Superb, highly recommend. We have 30" tubes assembled "sideways" which gives a 24" height and a wide diameter allowing branches to spread. Secure with duct tape. Attach to a wood stake using a zip tie. Due to extreme 30-40mph winds and hard/dry ground, we used cheap bamboo skewers inside the tube for added support... works like a frame. Results: 90 seedling pines planted on flat, severe-drought, prairie at 7,100'. Driest spring in 15 years. Came back a week later to water the trees, and virtually every tree had significant growth already! Just incredible. It's been almost a month now, and all but a couple trees are growing fast. The tubes are versatile. Don't get hung up on the directions. Wrap the tube one way, you get a tall/narrow tube for a maple sapling; wrap the other way and you get a short/wide tube for an evergreen seedling. You can also stake these to form a wind-wall, which we did for our tomato plants.

Sky rocketing trees. I placed a couple dozen of these last year and should have purchased taller ones, as my trees, even white oaks, have shot out of the tops in less than a year after spending a few years doing nothing as far as growth (constant deer damage). I don't understand the comments about these being hard to install. It's very easy, and my son (who is 8) helped with no issues. I just used one ziptie at each end to connect them to a pole. They've held up just fine through several storms. I just bought 60 more of the 60" tubes since, as I said, I got too short of tubes last time.

We've just assembled several tubes on the picnic table using Mark's instructions (2/6/20). All smoothly done. The tubes are not intuitive indeed. Do pinch the tab ears to stabilize them in the slits. Cut our 48" tubes in half to place over small Button Bush planted in a wooded gulley. Tomorrow will install others over fruit treelings up in our field. We do get some real prairie winds here in central Illinois, but have placed the bamboo stakes inside the tubes for greater stability. Will let you know how that goes. So far, very happy with the product!

they will not stay together, they are too flimsy to mount on a single pole. You will be stapling or taping each one to try and get them to hold together. I tried assembling each different way possible, since they come with no directions,nor can you find any online by googling them, and each way they blow apart with any wind.

They should have been shipped in long box and curled as such. Tab system as per instructions constantly pulling apart. Cheap crap in my opinion very disappointed. Response from Tech Support: The tubes are shipped flat to save money on freight for the customer. For the taller shelters we find that starting in the middle then working to the ends is more efficient when putting the shelters together. Another tip is to use duct tape to hold the shelter together on either end while you are securing all the tabs.

These tree protectors where very poorly made. There where no instructions included with this product. I had to go on line to try to figure out how to install them. Very disappointing.

Planted trees yesterday, so no knowledge of life of tubes. No traditional vent holes, but I think enough wind will blow through the full-length joint. I like: Less expensive than most. Store flat, so minimal storage space. 2 can be joined to protect larger-diameter trees from deer rub. No bending/breaking of branches too common to slide-down tube installation. Lots of zip-tie "holes," so if one later tears out I can shift the tie to another hole. I don't like: Assembly takes too long; 2 minutes/tube adds up. Pairs of punch-out discs for zip ties are a pain to punch out, & punching easily results in tears in tube body, weakening it. Company needs to fully punch out all but the 2nd and 3rd pairs from the bottom. (Eliminate these 2 pairs so tube protects tree from herbicide sprayed around base.) Longer "ears" on tabs would cut down on tubes blown open. No instructions in box stating "shiny side out"!!!! Can you guess which side I put to the outside of the 100 tubes I assembled?

The assembly is not intuitive. Here's how to do it: -Place the flat tube sheet on a kitchen table SHINY side down. -With a ballpoint pen punch out the perforations for as many zip tie holes as you want to use...for my 60" tubes I will use four zip ties. It's much easier and faster to do this before you assemble the tube. -Curl the tab edge UNDER the edge with the slits. -Poke the tabs through the slits from underneath the slit side (dull side to shiny side) so the tab exits the tube on the outside, i.e. shiny side -Pinch the ears of the tab inward so they catch on the slit and don't pop out.\ -When you're done, the shiny side of the tube is outside and the tabs stick out outside as well. The whole process takes me about two minutes per tube once I figured it out. I'm pre-assembling my 75 tubes at home and bringing out to the field to install along with the planting of the trees.

Economical and versatile. They can be easily cut shorter to protect small plants or tree/shrub seedlings. For example, a 4 foot tube can easily be made into 2, 2 foot tubes. It would also be easy to cut ventilation holes if that is desired. They can also be combined to make a wider tube. I just got mine so I cannot assess durability as yet but I think they will be adequate and they can easily reinforced with a bit of tape should that become necessary. When assembling, the tab should go OVER the edge that has the slots.

I used these tree tubes along with the other milk jug plastic ones. The pre-made plastic ones are much faster to install, but they aren't nearly as good as these are. Plus, the pre-made plastic ones are not the same size because they are shipped inside of each other. The pre-made plastic ones are impossible to get on trees that have a lot of branches. These come rolled up in a box. These do take time to put together, but when done right they will stay together indefinitely. I installed all of mine in 25 to 35 mile an hour winds and not one has come apart! You must put the arrow tabs on the outside and slightly bend down the corners of the arrows so that they catch on the other side. If you do this then they will NEVER come apart, no tape is needed and all you need to do is bamboo stake them and throw on three zip ties. I did over 100 trees in two days with one of my friends helping out on day 2. I would definitely use these again and I would highly recommend these.

Read several negative reviews about them coming apart. Did not find instructions, but there are 4 different ways you can assemble them and 1 of those 4 ways will never come apart. Make sure to experiment with it. You want the tips of the arrows sticking out, if they are inside they won't achieve the appropriate angle to stay locked in place. Have tons of these in 40+mph winds, haven't seen one come open yet.

A little time consuming to put these together, but they've stood up well and should be easier to take down and reuse in a couple of years. 24 of these used on saplings in sandy soil that dries out fast, and not one has died so far. I will say that the need to come with better directions. If you overlap the plastic one way, the tabs that hold it shut come undone way too easily. If you change up which side of the plastic overlaps, the tabs seem to hold "A LOT" better. I bet this would solve a complaint or 2 as none of my tubes have blow open.

I currently have about 500 of these tree tubes out on seedlings. We've had them on for a couple weeks. Every couple days we check and find maybe 10 that have opened up due to the tabs pulling loose; some of those (being structurally weaker once they open up) then crumble or crease which permanently compromises their strength. We've used a combination of tape, and mulch piled around outside the tube to try to keep them together. The vendor needs to improve their tab closure design, it seems like there are a handful of things they could do. We'll see how they last over time. To be fair I haven't used other tubes so I don't know how they compare.

I am slowly eliminating hedge and honey locust on my acreage and replacing them with beneficial trees. These tubes have become an integral part of that. I currently have them protecting pin oaks, burr oaks, persimmons, mulberries, and paw paws. I have not seen the accelerated growth others are claiming, but I am having tremendous survival on the bare root seedlings. Getting ready to buy more to protect the trees in the yard.

Protex tubes are the BEST, most economical option for shrubs and certain trees by putting two of them together to make an 8" diameter tubes. 18" hazelnut seedlings grew over 5 feet tall with multiple branches in 5 months in 4ft length "doublewide" Protex tubes. The larger diameter gives the plant the ability to form it's true bush-like nature compared to the tight confines of a regular tree tube. The plants were caged with wire in the fall and the tubes will be re-used this spring for more plants. Also highly recommended for plum, serviceberry, ninebark, silky, roughleaf dogwood, ect where you are looking for multi-stemed plant. The 8" diameter also helps your plants get a stronger resistance to bending in the wind compared to what you get when regular 3-4" tubes are removed. Use a hole puncher to join top and bottom with small electrical ties to prevent curious critters from riding the tubes down. Use a pocket knife to cut 2-4 small ventilation "windows" in the tubes.

Great value. Takes more time to set up this tube then other kinds. Roughly 2 minutes to put tube together then another 2-3 to stake and zip tie in place. Works best with wood stakes. Great for small land owners like myself trying to protect tree seedlings.

I was skeptical at first when this product arrived.l assembled them and secured them with 4ft 1in stake and 2 zip ties.They have function and held up well for 1 year now and have been effective in preventing deer browse.

Reordered this tube 3 times so obviously think it works great for protecting and promoting tree growth. Had some small trees that I had been pampering for 2-3 years with minimal growth and a lot of deer/beaver damage. Put tubes on them and had 2-4' growth first year and deer left alone. Only modification I make is to run a strip of clear 2" packaging/mailing tape the entire length of tube over the tabs to prevent tabs coming loose. Drive a large bamboo stake and wire tie in 2 places. Although deer can reach 4' tops occasionally, 5' tubes would stop this but just look too tall. Won't plant trees again without them.

These tubes are 10x better than some shorter ones I bought at a big box store for the same price. I drilled extra holes on the same side as the latches for the zip ties and put my stakes on that side instead of where the predrilled holes were. The zip ties pull the tube against the stake so the latches can't pop open. I also drilled a bunch of air holes by clamping the flattened tubes together and drilling through about 10 at a time. Don't know if that was needed but figured it couldn't hurt. It has only been a couple months and some of the trees are near the top of the 4' tubes. The trees without tubes are knee high and not doing well. Next year I'll try some 5 footers. Very happy with this product.

I bought these this spring for some Sawtooth seedlings I planted. All I can say is buy taller than you think you need because I have seedlings that have grown to 5' + from 16" seedlings since March. Great product!

I've been using these tubes for over 5 years . We use them to protect large oaks and apples from the porcupines and also have them on hundreds of young trees to protect from rabbits and deer . Best thing to do is after putting around tree put electrical tape around bottom and top, never fall off.

I purchased these tubes in 2008, and they have held up great. Sure I had to occasionally maintain them by replacing some zip ties, but they have held up for 5 years now. I use them in a remote location in PA, and only check them a few times a year. I would recommend them. (for the record, I have not tried other tree tubes so I do not know how they compare, the price seemed reasonable)

These tubes failed us in high winds. 24 hours after putting them up we were taking them down and replacing them with a higher quality tube. We even had them attached to a 6ft tall metal post. They still could not handle one severe thunderstorm, half of the tubes collapsed and opened up. Very disappointing. If used in a secluded location or spot where they can be easily maintained these tubes would be ok.

I connected two of the blue protectors together using the easy hasp locking system to form a wider diameter protector for chestnut trees. The different heights are suitable for a variety of trees. It is easy to spray vegetation control around the tubes to reduce competition from nearby weeds. They can be reused for the next generation of seedlings. "Sky Blue" means "Sky High" survival in my grove!