The complete guide
Orchard Netting Done Right: Covering Rows, Runs and Big Gardens With One Net
Netting two trees is a chore. Netting a whole row, a chicken run and the pond with a collection of small nets is a weekend gone, and every join between nets is a gap that a bird will find before you do. That's the problem this net exists to solve. At 5 m x 20 m, one piece of mesh covers what would otherwise take three or four smaller nets, and this guide walks through planning, fitting and looking after it.
If your job is smaller, a couple of backyard trees or a single veggie patch, the same net comes in a 5 m x 10 m size and everything below still applies. But if you are staring down an orchard row, a berry trellis, a market bed or a big backyard, read on. Size is the point here.
Why One Big Net Beats a Patchwork
Bird control fails at the seams. Where two nets overlap, wind works the join open, fruit pokes through, and birds treat the gap as a front door. A single large sheet has no seams to fail. You tension it once, close the edges once, and the whole run is sealed from end to end. This is why commercial growers cover rows with continuous netting rather than tiling small pieces, and the same logic applies in a big backyard.
There is a labour saving too. One net means one setup, one set of edges to secure, one thing to check after a storm, and one bundle to fold away at the end of the season. The best large bird netting is the one you fit once and barely think about again until harvest.
And netting remains the humane option at any size. Nothing is baited or trapped. Birds arrive, find mesh where the buffet used to be, and move on to easier pickings. The crop ripens exactly as it would have, except you're the one who eats it.
Wildlife-Safe Netting Comes First
Before the frames and the measuring, the part that matters most. Netting protects wildlife or endangers it depending entirely on how it is fitted.
Loose, saggy netting is the hazard. Birds and bats push into slack folds and become entangled, and a baggy net draped straight over a tree is where that happens. A net stretched taut over a frame behaves like a wall: animals meet a firm surface and turn away. The test is simple. If you can push a hand deep into a loose fold, the net isn't tight enough.
Mesh size is regulated in some places as well. Many regions now require small mesh sizes for household fruit tree netting, and the rules are not the same everywhere. This net has a 2 cm x 2 cm mesh, so before covering backyard fruit trees, check your local wildlife-safe netting rules and make sure your plan complies where you live. Whatever the local rules say, the universal practice is the same: fit the net tight, close every edge, and check it regularly.
What You Are Working With
The net is knitted from heavy-duty nylon at 30 g per square metre. Knitted matters. Cheap extruded nets fail like perforated paper, one broken strand at a time, while a knitted weave spreads load and shrugs off rubbing against posts and branches. It is also the reason this net cuts cleanly with scissors and will not fray, which turns cut-to-size from a risk into a feature. Split the net into an orchard cover and two bed covers, and every cut edge stays intact.
The 2 cm x 2 cm mesh stops birds without changing conditions underneath. Sun, air and rain pass through, pollinators come and go, and the row ripens on schedule. The nylon is UV stabilised, which is what makes reusable bird netting genuinely reusable: stored out of the sun between seasons, the same net keeps going out year after year.
For scale, 5 m x 20 m is 100 square metres of cover. That is an orchard row, the roof and sides of a serious chicken run, a long double bed of vegetables, or the pond with plenty left over.
Measuring an Orchard Row
Netting covers an up-and-over distance, not a floor plan, so measure like a tape running over the plants. For a row of dwarf trees about 2 m tall and 2 m wide, the net needs roughly 6 m across the row to reach ground on both sides, which sits comfortably inside this net's 5 m width, and the 20 m length runs down the row itself. Taller trees eat width fast, so measure your tallest tree before assuming, and remember the net must reach the ground or the trunk line on every side.
For chicken runs, treat the net as a roof panel plus side skirts and let the run's own fencing do the vertical work. A 6 m x 15 m run, for example, sits well inside one net with skirt to spare on every side. For ponds, add a metre of margin all round so the net can be anchored clear of the water and stay tight.
A note on arrival day, because it's the question everyone asks about big nets. This one comes neatly tied in its packaging rather than stuffed in loose, and the four corners are marked with bright colour strings. Resist the urge to shake it open in the middle of the lawn. Find the corner strings first, walk two corners out to full width, and the rest follows without a fight.
If the sums say you only need half this net, that is not a problem. Cut it and bank the rest. If the sums say you need more than one net, plan the overlap at a post line where the two edges can be tied off together properly rather than left to flap.
Frames for Long Runs
Structure first, mesh second. Over a long row the classic setup is a line of posts or star pickets with poly pipe arched between them, making a tunnel the net can lie taut against. A ridge wire strung post to post works too, with the net tensioned over it like a tent fly. For trellised crops such as grape vines and berries, the trellis itself is most of the frame, and the net just needs hoops or standoffs to hold it clear of the fruit.
Fitting a big net is a calm job if you stage it. Find the four bright corner strings first and square the net up alongside the row, still folded. Lift one edge onto the frame and tie it off with the included cable ties, then unroll across, pulling as you go. Tension until the surface feels like a trampoline. Then close the edges: stake the bottom to the ground with the 10 included stakes, weigh it down along its length, or gather and tie at the end posts. The edge work decides everything, because birds and possums don't go through mesh, they go through the gap that was left for them.
Living With a Netted Row
Once the net is up and tight, the routine is a walk-past. Every day or two, and after every storm, run your eye along the surface and the edges. Tight, closed, nothing caught. Done. If an animal ever does become entangled, work slowly with a towel over it, cut the mesh where needed, and hand anything injured, and any bat or flying fox, straight to your local wildlife rescue rather than freeing it yourself.
Set up one end of the run as your door for harvest days. Unhook, walk the row with a bucket, hook it closed on the way out. Growers with chicken runs get a bonus routine: the same net that keeps wild birds off the feed also keeps droppings and disease pressure down, so the flock is cleaner for it.
Come the end of the season, take the net down rather than leaving it to cook in the sun all year. Shake it out, rinse it if needed, dry it fully, and fold it corner-strings-out into a dark shelf in the shed. That single habit is what turns one net into many seasons of crop protection netting instead of a yearly repurchase.
The Bottom Line
Big plantings do not need a pile of small nets and a prayer. They need one continuous sheet, a simple frame, honest tension and closed edges. This 5 m x 20 m net brings the size, the knitted strength and the hardware to do it in a single pass, and it comes back every season you store it well. Measure up and over, allow for the tallest tree, fit it tight, and walk the row with your coffee. The birds will manage fine on the wattle down the road, and this year the harvest is all yours.