I went to the GC yesterday for some grease for my fruit trees.
when i saw the price i came away without £7.95 for a small one.
got to thinking ???will normal lithium grease do or will it
damage or poison the trees?
I's be a bit shy of using anything with stuff like lithium in it, but I bet a big tub of vasedline would work, and be cheaper than the fancy stuff.
I think vaseline will be too 'soft'. I gritted my teeth and bought the 'real' stuff and it's very stiff in consistency so doesn't melt when it's warm or the sun shines on it. I think vaseline would so you'd have to keep re-applying it.
I also wouldn't use anything with lithium or similar in it.
Are you looking at tubs of grease or grease bands.
The bands are more expensive & less effective in my opinion they get eaten after a while and painting grease on is a lot less fiddly than trying to get a band to stick to itself the tubs of grease don't normally cost more than £5 and you can usually find a better deal online if you shop around such as this 200g tub of fruit tree grease for £0.99 + £2 P+P for orders up to 1KG.
http://www.hardware-ironmongers.com/details.aspx?code=299HHHH