Save an Ecosystem: Help Stop the Sale of Cypress Mulch

Cypress Memory

This is the stump of one of the virgin cypress trees that were almost completely harvested in Louisiana many years ago. In the background, and growing from the stump, are the second generation of these slow growing trees that are now not regenerating normally.

I was at Home Depot, here in Dripping Springs, Texas, looking for some mulch to add to the soil I was making for potting up plants. I was appalled to see cypress mulch being sold here.

Many years ago, in Louisiana a coalition was started to stop the harvesting of Cypress trees, some as small as an inch in diameter, because people there realized that cypress trees were already being killed or not sprouting from seeds due to salt water invasion, ground subsidence, and competition with invasive plants such as tallow. And cypress trees are the backbone of the coastal swamps that historically provided the Arcadian culture with their living and protected the coast from the full fury of hurricanes, while also serving as soil catchers from flooding rivers, playing a major role in maintaining the swamp ecosystem, one of the richest in biodiversity and biomass in the world.

Ten good reasons to not use cypress trees as mulch:

• Cutting down cypress trees for mulch is not a sustainable practice and are endangering them.
• Removing cypress trees help to destroy swamps that protect Louisiana’s coast from hurricanes.
• Cypress trees are not regenerating due to such impacts as coastal subsidence.
• The cypress mulch industry is the main reason cypress trees are being logged.
• The cypress mulch comes from very young trees, some as small as one inch in diameter so we are even losing trees that should mature in the next few hundred years.
• Cypress mulch is not termite proof as some people believe. This was true of trees that were hundreds of years old when harvested but not of the very young ones being destroyed now.
• Cypress mulch actually repels water, making it poor mulch.
• Cypress trees grow very slowly so we cannot replant them and expect them to replace the ones lost to harvesting for mulch.
• Much better and more sustainable substitutes are pine or cedar mulch.
• You may already have a free source of materials to make your own woody mulch.

Besides not using cypress mulch, you can help save complete ecosystems by taking action against Wal-Mart, Lows and Home Depot. Click here to sign a petition letter to them.

http://saveourcypress.org/action-center/take-action-online.html

Alternatives:

· Help recycle cedar, shrub and hardwood cuttings by hauling home free, chipped-up mulch from some of the County Recycle Collection sites or get from tree trimers. (I sometimes get a load from New Braunfels. I also grew the best garden I had in north Louisiana after stopping the electric company tree trimmers and offering them a dump spot on my property. Then I put the fresh wood chips at the bottom of my double dug beds and added extra nitrogen on top.)

· Buy a wood chipper and recycle your own yard waste and that of your neighbors.

· Buy cedar or pine mulch which is a renewable resource.

Other Resources:

http://suncoast.fnpschapters.org/pdffiles/mulch.pdf

http://saveourcypress.org/

http://saveourcypress.org/consumer-education/cypress-mulch-brochure.html