Young trees must be staked when they’re planted, if they’re going to survive and grow tall and
straight. Yet the very stakes and straps that are meant to insure the trees success are often
the cause of their failure.
The mechanisms associated with adjusting tree stakes today are labor intensive, and as a
result, these critically important adjustments are avoided or skipped altogether. By the time
the installing contractor turns a project over to the owner, severe damage has already
occurred, and the integrity of the tree has been forever compromised.
In response to this situation, we have designed a staking solution we hope will become the
industry standard. Like all great ideas, this one is simple and elegant: a sleeve fits over
either a steel or wooden stake, and secures to the pole using a thumb screw, hex bolt, or an
Allen bolt. Any strapping device of your choosing is then wrapped around the tree, and
attached to the bracket on the sleeve.
Background
Our background and experience has been in the commercial landscape maintenance business in
the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years.
We have cared for thousands of young trees that have been planted in the newly emerged
neighborhoods of South Beach and Mission Bay, on the eastern edge of San Francisco. We
have worked with many various organizations, agencies and private firms in establishing a
healthy urban forest on lands that only 20 years ago were abandoned industrial wastelands. In
the process, we’ve learned a great deal about how to care for young trees in extreme, urban
conditions.
These new neighborhoods, along with the financial district of San Francisco, (another area
where we do much of our work,) share the same microclimate and growing conditions: man-
made land (reclaimed from the San Francisco Bay) and strong afternoon winds. Both of these
conditions make it tough for a young tree to establish itself.
We’ve witnessed time and time again how installing contractors don’t have the time or available
resources to properly adjust staking straps on newly planted trees, because ithe task is difficult,
time consuming, and expensive.
As maintenance contractors, we see the results of this neglect. The damage is severe, the
fatality rate is high, and the costs are extreme. We were compelled to come up with a complete,
inexpensive solution to this problem – a solution that would result in healthy trees, happy
installing contractors and designers who have kept their projects “in the black”, and project
owners who have strong, beautiful trees.
This is how Green Sleeves came to be. A simple and elegant solution to a thorny and difficult
problem.
GREEN SLEEVES IS A CERTIFIED SAN FRANCISCO LBE (LOCAL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE) BUSINESS.
GREEN SLEEVES IS MANUFACTURED IN THE USA FROM 70% RECYCLED MATERIALS.