TREE TAG WIRES THAT WON’T GIRDLE

 

by Dwight Bradley Peters Creek

 

While I was in Maine in October, I stopped in on George Stilphen to check on his collection of Maine apple varieties. George has a clever way of wiring tags to trees that seems to solve the girdling problem (see sketch). As the tree grows and the trunk and branches thicken, the spiral of wire (about 2mm or 1/16” thick) simply expands.