Same as Spud - weed-mat / landscaping cloth down first, then aluminum window screen (easier to work with than hardware cloth) which is flared out at the bottom a bit, then landscape staples to hold the flared screen down to the ground, then I pile 3" to 4" of crushed limestone on top of the cloth / weed mat so ALL of it is covered. My landscape cloth pieces are 3' X 3' square.
The aluminum window screen idea of Appleman's is the ticket. You just wrap the screen around the tree trunk ONCE - and ONLY so both ends just touch - so you have a "tear-drop" shape when viewed from above. (I cut my screens to 16" long and so they will be 24" tall for snow depth. When the ends are touching, the "tear-drop" is about 8" wide from the wide side to the touching edges.) Then staple down the vertical touching edges from top to bottom. The screen should be loose and floppy on the trunk at this point, with the trunk in the widest part of the "tear-drop." Now staple the screen across the top from the outside edge toward the trunk until you can just slip your finger between the trunk and the closest staple. That will leave enough room for growth for that year and maybe another year. Pin the bottom flared base of the screen down tight with landscape staples so no mouse or vole can enter. Each year as the trunk expands, the tree will most likely rip the "next" staple loose at the top of the screen - or you can remove it to help the tree.
With hardware cloth, you must keep changing the size of the "wrap" because the hardware cloth won't "give" & flex like the aluminum screen will. No rubbing to "girdle" the trees. But hardware cloth will keep rabbits from chewing your trees. Mice & voles might still be able to get under the base of hardware cloth, unless you dig it into the soil about 2" or 3".
Once you pile stone on top of the weed mat / landscape cloth, the critters won't like to tunnel under there. Crushed limestone chips are jagged and sharp, so digging and attempts at tunneling are painful and uncomfortable for the mice and voles. Using this system, in 7 years we haven't had any mice or voles chewing on the tree bark.
The method I've been using I learned from Appleman and his pictures and posts on another thread - which I can't remember the name of. Some local orchardists near my camp use that same method on newly planted trees as well. It works. I learned from THEM !!
so I’m moving them now. At least their not dead in the box at the back door.
