Tree Sentry
Unlike other methods to install tree shelters, the Tree Sentry requires no outboard support stake, no wire ties, and no tools to install. Once the seedling is planted, simply push the Tree Sentry to the ground, sinking the 3 integral steel stakes at the base into the soil, taking care to start the stakes straight and vertical. That's it! Installation is fast and simple!
Browse Mesh
The Browse Mesh also installs very quickly in one simple step with no tools required. With the Tree 
Sentry already installed over the seedling, hold the mesh with two hands around the bottom of it, and force the mesh over the top of the tapered cone. Continue with two hands around the cone and mesh, forcing it down, making the mesh stretch down as far as it will go. The mesh must be firmly pushed on or you risk it loosening up in the buffeting of stronger winds. Properly installed, it will not need tending.
For maximum holding power on the mesh, force it down over the cone until the first strand or two of the mesh breaks. You will hear and audible "pop" when the mesh strand breaks.
Installation Tips
The best tip is to plant at the optimal time in the early spring or mid to late fall when soils are very moist, fully thawed and easily worked for planting your seedlings. Some sites having highly compacted soils may require the soil to be loosened around the seedling to allow the shelter to be inserted into the ground more easily. Many smaller projects accomplish this by turning the soil with a shovel, or simply striking the soil several times with a hoedad if using this tool to break the soil for the seedling to be planted.
If you strike a stone or hard object beneath the soil as you try to set the shelter, simply back out the shelter, "clock it' - rotating the shelter in one direction or the other about the seedling, keeping the shelter centered over the seedling and reinsert the stakes into the soil. For soils heavily laden with rocks, this can take a couple of stabs (and still only a few seconds each try) to get all three wires inserted fully.
If the soil is so laden with rocks and obstructions that several tries doesn't get it done you still have 
several options. You can nip a few inches off the wire that's hitting the obstruction. Spring-loaded "iron worker" pliers work best for this task, having ergonomic handles, making it a one handed operation. Nipping a couple inches off one or two of the stakes will often allow it to be pushed to ground. Having (3) staking points, nipping a couple inches off one or two - if necessary - of the stakes does not seriously detract from the shelter's stability.
The very worst, rocky sites may require making a piloting hole into the ground by driving a 1/4" diameter rebar or steel rod into the ground with a hammer to penetrate or break the rocks or obstruction. These are tough sites for planting, too, but they often need the protection of a shelter.
Maintenance of your Tree Sentry
Under the majority of installations, field labor is not available to monitor the millions of shelters installed each year and it is not necessary to address each shelter. For private landowners, gardeners, and others with smaller planting projects, the practice of annually checking each shelter and each seedling and even weeding the inside of the cones will offer a project the utmost control and benefit for the seedlings, but it is not a requirement to a successful project.
Under normal conditions of "frost heave" from the moisture in soils, some lifting of the shelter off of the soil surface can occur over seasonal transitions. (Dry soils will experience less of this occurrence.) Those sites which are closely managed and have labor available will practice checking the shelter once a year and pushing down on any lifted shelters to reset them to the ground. The tree shelters will become brittle after a couple of years of field exposure as a part of the decay process, so care must be taken to avoid cracking them as they are pushed back to the soil.
There is concern among some planters with the benefit of the "greenhouse effect" being compromised by introducing a "chimney affect" of ventilation at the base of shelter heaved up by frost. A number of sites have tracked the results of not pushing the shelters back to the ground following frost heave and have found the adverse affects to be insignificant on seedling mortality. Each site requires its own study with consideration given to the precipitation, soil type, rodent populations, surface water runoff and whether field mice would put significant survival pressure on seedlings if the shelters were left elevated from the soil. Certainly if you are using herbicides to kill off surrounding vegetation, to keep the weeds and ground cover from competing with your seedlings for water and nutrients, you are advised to keep the shelters seated against the ground to protect them from herbicide drift. There is a lengthy list of considerations, in all. We recommend consulting with the forestry manager your local Soil and Water Conservation District office.
After being exposed to field conditions, the Tree Sentry will chalk, check and crack, eventually breaking down into an inert powder. Over several years, the shelters will become brittle to where even grasping them too firmly by hand will cause them to crack or shatter. This process is designed into the Tree Sentry to provide that the shelters will not impede the growth and development as trees mature on sites where the shelters are completely untended throughout the life of the stand.
If field labor is available, the practice of removing the shelters after seedlings become established in 4 to 6 years prevents decaying shelters from littering the landscape until they fully decompose and provides feedback of how to best employ shelters on a particular site. Remember, the decay process is accelerated by light exposure, so if the fragmenting pieces falling into the ground cover will become sheltered from sunlight. Although the pieces are "out of sight" the will remain for a long period. The resin will not harm the soil and it becomes more an argument for environmental aesthetics as to whether - or not - you remove the pieces and the balance of the decaying shelters.
