We supply biodegradable plant guards for ecological restoration, native revegetation, riparian planting and large-scale programmes right across New Zealand — including these projects.
Supporting Community Restoration
Each year we donate plant guards and weed mats to local environmental projects. This winter that included the new īnanga (whitebait) spawning site plantings at Tasman Domain and the Tasman Stream restoration project.
Fields Creek Īnanga Habitat
Students at Tasman School decorated plant guards with messages about protecting native fish, which we donated for planting at an īnanga (whitebait) spawning habitat near the school on Fields Creek. A small project with a big message — from the next generation of restoration champions.
Tasman Bay Guardians
We partner with Tasman Bay Guardians on īnanga (whitebait) spawning site restoration, as well as flood relief work across the region. As part of their region-wide recovery effort following the 2025 Tasman winter floods — spanning Waimea to Golden Bay, with 40 working bees, 56 volunteers and 28 restoration sites supported — we donated plant guards to help re-guard young native trees along flood-damaged stream banks.
Read more about the Tasman flood recovery effort
Te Mamaku Native Corridor
Working with Te Tauihu Environment Trust (TET) and Restoring the Moutere, we’ve supplied plant guards for one of Tasman’s largest restoration plantings — a native corridor taking shape along State Highway 60, linking the Waimea Estuary to the Moutere Inlet. What began as a community push to reopen an overgrown track has grown into a decades-long project spanning almost 10km, supported by MPI’s One Billion Trees programme and Trees That Count. By June 2026, more than 39,000 native trees had gone into the ground, with volunteers alone contributing over 750 hours fitting plant guards during working bees. The project has been featured on TVNZ’s Good Sorts.
Read more about Te Mamaku Native Corridor · Watch on TVNZ Good Sorts
Guards used: EcoShield Pro throughout the first two years of planting, with EcoShield Core and EcoShield Base used over the past three years.
At Te Mamaku Native Corridor we’ve used more than 39,000 cardboard plant guards from Plant Guards NZ. Biodegradable guards were the only real option at our scale — sending volunteers back to collect plastic guards later just isn’t practical, and we were concerned about microplastic residue building up in the soil.
Te Mamaku Native Corridor
In 2022 and 2023 we used 14,000 of the sturdy waxed EcoShield Pro guards, and in winter 2026 they’re still holding well. They were easy for our volunteers to fit on newly planted trees. We also trialled 400 EcoShield Core guards with 400 EcoShield Base weed mats on a dry, windy site in 2023 — a year on they were still holding up, and we’ve used them for our plantings ever since. We rely on multiple funding sources and have to manage our resources carefully, and the lower cost of Core let us buy and plant more trees. The weed mats cut weed growth inside the guards too, meaning much less hand-weeding for our volunteers. In wetland areas we still use the waxed Pro guards.
Our overall survival rate is 90%+, even years on — the quality of the guards is a big part of that.
Beuke’s Bush
An 11-hectare remnant of mature lowland podocarp forest — rimu, tōtara, matāī and miro — in the Neudorf Valley, protected under a QEII covenant, with a stream supporting tuna (eel) and kōura. Working with Te Tauihu Environment Trust (TET) and the Moutere Catchment Group, we’ve supplied plant guards for this site since 2021. More than 36,000 native trees have been planted here to date — including a 2025 donation of 4,000 trees from Trees That Count — alongside over 2.5km of riparian fencing, with plot-based survival monitoring in place since planting began. The site is recognised as a priority under KMTT’s Restoring Lowlands programme, with recent funding support including The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa.
Guards used: Primarily EcoShield Pro, with EcoShield Core also used across parts of the site.
Weka Walk
On a 150-hectare Moutere property, Philip and Jenny Leith have spent the past decade restoring the land gully by gully — planting more than 44,000 native trees, fencing and restoring over 20 hectares of wetland, and reconnecting more than 20 gullies into continuous habitat corridors, with support from the One Billion Trees programme and Trees That Count. As Top South Now reported, Jenny “prepares plants, guards and stakes” while Philip plants — a hands-on partnership that has also grown their pest-trapping network from 30 to 150 traps.
Read more about Weka Walk in Top South Now
Guards used: EcoShield Pro
NZ Landcare Trust
We’ve supplied plant guards supporting Landcare Trust catchment and restoration projects, including a recent order of 2,000 guards for a Fonterra-linked catchment planting programme.
Tasman District Council
We supply plant guards supporting council-led planting and restoration initiatives in the Tasman region.
The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa
We supply plant guards for conservation and restoration planting projects.
Working on a project of your own?
Whether it’s a council catchment programme, a trust-led restoration project, or a large-scale riparian planting job, get in touch and we’ll help you plan your order. Email plantguard@pm.me or call 021 844 665.