Wrapping root balls without hassle or wire

ARTICLE

GARDEN AND PARK TECHNOLOGY

Heleen Kommers, Monday 1 September 2025

88 sec

New wrapping machine makes planting faster, cleaner and safer

When planting field-grown trees, municipalities and landscapers often encounter wired root balls. These are root balls wrapped in hessian and a wire net. These can cause failures or windthrow even years after planting. Damcon in Opheusden therefore developed the Tree Wrapper DTW-70: a machine that wraps root balls in a biodegradable wrap - without wire, without hessian, but while retaining structure and manageability.

Tree-wrapper on Giant Knikshovel

The root ball no longer needs to be wrapped manually through heavy labor. The Tree Wrapper does this within a few minutes, at the nursery. Leendert Scheurwater, director at Damcon: 'The wrapping material is made of cellulose and can go straight into the ground. It decomposes completely. For the landscaper or municipal manager, that means: planting, pressing down and finished, without cutting wire, without risk of damage during transport. The wire net can in fact damage the stem of other trees.'

Leendert Scheurwater of Damcon with the innovation

Better for tree and soil

A difficult problem with wired root balls is that the metal can constrict the roots. Especially under long-term pressure on the same spot, weak points can develop in the root system. These are underground and therefore hard to detect. In storms such trees can suddenly topple, even if they look healthy above ground. This risk is reduced with a wrap without metal.

That means for the landscaper or municipal manager: planting, pressing down and finished

Tree wrapper

Less waste on site

Trees grown in bags or containers create plastic waste at the planting site. Pots and bags often end up as residual waste, while municipalities struggle with sustainable resource management. 'Because the Tree Wrapper is already applied at the nursery, the pots and bags remain there,' says Scheurwater. 'They can be reused. A good quality pot can last ten years, so why throw it away? In South Holland alone this amounts to millions of kilos of plastic annually. Unfortunately, only a small part of this is currently recycled.'

The technique is not only intended for field-grown trees but also for bag- and container-grown trees

Also for container and bag cultivation

The Tree Wrapper DTW-70 can be mounted on most tool carriers and operated by one person. The tree is lifted slightly, after which the machine wraps the root ball. The technique is not only intended for field-grown trees but also applicable to container and bag cultivation. The machine will soon go into production. 'For municipalities and landscapers looking for a fast, clean and tree-friendly planting method, this technique offers a concrete alternative. If you work with wrapped trees, you no longer need to switch to circular working. You are already doing it.'

This article was previously published on 29 August 2025 on the Boomzorg website.

Damcon

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