to my EYE... yes.. it would be a travesty ... what are you thinking ed???

otherwise.. i dont see how either would harm mature bark ...

but might we not give you a multitude of other ideas.. if you showed us the tree and the application????

ken

ps: it might be the difference between a gardeners eye.. and a rednecks.. lol .... perhaps the real question is whether either would be favorable over one single nail to hang a sign .....

It won't hurt the tree, but over time the tree may grow around and over a foreign object. We've had maples and other trees "swallow" wire, fence staples, and plastic fence insulators over the past 40 years, and the trees are thriving today.

We also marked a tree with large splotches of white paint about 6 or 7 years ago (to identify a corner of our property in photographs as part of a boundary dispute). Both tree and paint exist today unmarred. I expect the tree to far outlast the paint however.

This post was edited by spedigrees on Mon, Jul 8, 13 at 12:25

They do it along trails in forests all the time. I don't think they would do it if it hurt the trees.

The paint will just stick to the bark, and eventually all bark comes off (like skin, replaced slowly from within), so the paint will too.

The issue with a metal, plastic, etc item attached to a tree was described well already, above.