**4. Conclusions**

Sapling-wood from seven different tree species turned out to be not durable, both in laboratory and different field tests. Against advertisement promises and as expected from studies on the durability of sapwood and juvenile heartwood of various wood species, the durability of sapling-wood, which is considered juvenile sapwood, was even lower than common sapwood. Protective effects of remaining bark were not observed. It is therefore expected that service lives of gardening and outdoor decoration accessories made from sapling-wood are generally low. In particular, under Central European climatic conditions the service life is barely 2 years in above-ground and 1 year in in-ground contact. The effect of additional water capturing seemed to be negligibly small due to the very low durability of the material itself.

**Author Contributions:** C.B. was mainly responsible for the conceptualization, methodology used, data evaluation, data validation, and formal analysis. Investigations and data curation were conducted by D.G.B.N. and L.E. The original draft of this article was prepared by C.B., S.B. and L.E. who was also responsible for the review and editing process of this article. C.B. and L.E. did care for the visualization.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** Martin Rosengren, Mirko Küppers, and Rainer Henke are acknowledged for providing sapling-wood test material and corresponding sapwood portions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


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