The thing about outdoor growing is its different everywhere, so what works for me may be bad advice for you. I'm just a very cautious small timer and that is what I preach for others to be. If you want to learn all the options I suggest you do what I have done, read everything there is under outside growing at the big marijuana grow forum sites. The best site was overgrow, it was in canada and got raided and closed down, now the best forum is over at seed boutique. I'm just a big fish in a small pond over here, lol, those boys are the best breeders in the world, many of them have forgotten more than I know.
Back to your question, I strongly suggest you put nothing man made what so ever around your plants. People will walk right by them not noticing them 19 times out of 20 if you do that. Stong healthy fast growing girls started indoors are able to fend for themselves. I derisively call the inbred indoor plant strains poodles, you want a fucking wolf dog if you are going to release it to the wild. The real breeders of outdoor pot sell you F1 hybrids that grow like bamboo when started right. Plants that struggle outdoors are the ones the deer munch and the bugs swarm over. Hybrid vigor, a well known plant and animal breeding fact, states that children resulting from parents that are on opposte ends of the species gene pool will be healthier and grow larger and faster. Many of the best strains for the outdoors are a mix of an indica and a sativa. When some indoor operation out of the Netherlands sells you a well known strain that goes back twenty years, theres a damn good chance its a poodle. I like that hybrid vigor thing, I wish it was shoved in the face of a few racists, lol.
Lots of outddor rookies get the bight idea of growing in some local forest preserve. Don't. Get in your car and drive one hour out of Dodge and then start looking. There are three reasons for this. 1)everyone goes for walks where its nice and pretty and public 2)forest rangers make it their business to find all the grow ops in the public woods and 3) The fucking deer are grossly over populated there and munch every living growing thing they can reach.
A lot of outdoor grows out californy way have to surround their grow with chicken wire, I don't. I always amend the soil in the fall because critters dig where they smell people. I guess the smell of us means there might be edible garbage there. Stay away from bone meal, blood meal, and the fish emulsion fertilizers unless you want your precious girls dug up. hope it helps