Cypress Trees of the Gulf

Cypress swamps are clear-cut and entire trees are ground up to make cypress garden mulch. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe's are driving destruction of the Gulf's best natural storm protection by selling cypress mulch all over the country. It's time they stopped.

Comments

[jezuzhchryst]

Another long term soulution would be if humans quit breeding like rats and give the Earth a chance to heal for a generation or two..... oh then corporation couldn't "grow" and "prosper" .... never mind~

[hippymichele]

I am an avid gardener and didn't think forward enough about this issue. I used cypress mulch for a few years. And now thanx to you folks, I have another reason to go to sleep feeling guilty :) Personally, this could be solved with the old saying, "Think Global, act Local". There are local tree services everywhere. As it worked out for us, we got chipped wood from a local service. These trees were not cut down for logging, etc. They were just the most recent batch of dying tree and storm damage. Contacting these businesses for mulch could be a small start to protecting our gulf coast region. (not to mention big biz's next victim if cypress got the protection).

[Beatitudes]

When I was a kid - many years ago - when we returned from New Orleans visiting relatives and headed home to Lafayette, I used to roll the window down in our old black Buick so that I could feel the warm wind and smell the life that blew in from the Atchafalyaya Basin. It was dusk and the cypress stumps jutted out into the world like the ghosts of confederate soldiers returning for the night. Years later, the Basin become known as Cancer Alley and now who knows where the winds of Katrina have blown the poison injected by human wickedness. There is a move to bring back the wetlands but here are the problems: Without protected status, the Atchafalaya faces these threats:

Logging of the cypress that remains and the bottomland hardwoods continues. (agit-pop you got it!)
Lack of public access through private holdings restricts public use and support for conservation. (for golf courses)
Dredging has changed natural hydraulics, accelerated siltation, and created oxygen-deprived dead zones where not aquatic life can survive.
Increased siltation has created dry land from wetland, and development pressures south of I-10 are increasing.
At least one lake in the Basin is polluted with mercury, and a fish advisory has been issued.
Levees have cut off freshwater flows, harming fishing and creating salt water intrusion.
In response to these concerns, a master plan for the Achafalaya Basin is currently under development by Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the Corps of Engineers. (attribution to the National Campaign to
save the Wetlands by the Audubon Society) .
Scary...because part of this campaign includes the Corps of Engineers.

Lyn LeJeune
The Beatitudes Network - Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans at www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com

This

[Marnie1]

By the time the Bushies and their buddies are done redisigning the old south in their own image there will be nothing left of that culture, including the very real and rich culture of blacks, cajuns, indians, french, spanish etc. the old south will simply be a giganitc WallMart parking lot.

Is this really want we want this country to become??
Obviously the current administration has planned destruction of the Gulf Coast in minute detail.

Pity they have not planned the destruction of Afganistan and Iraq with so much care.

[WilliePilgrim]

The destruction of coastal forests place our seashores in peril. The benefits gained from a wise stewardship of coastal ecology are abundant. Were a true picture of their role to be appreciated by the leadership, maybe they'd we'd see enlightened policy and legislation. Of course, that takes focused attention, which would get in the way of campaigning and t he other junk activities that keep us from being really aware of the situation in which we find ourselves in so many ways and regarding so many issues. Ignorace and greed...now that's how to motivate leadership, it would seem.

[sweetgreensnowpea]

life is grand
reality is a steamroller.
god this world makes me sad

[loki]

Considering it takes close to 80 years to get cypress to grow, I think chopping them up so people can put them on around their lawn is stupid.

Also remember a couple years ago when pressure treated wood has arsenic as one of the chemicals in the treating process? They put a ban on the sales of this type of lumber. But what happened to the billions of board feet already treated??? Why it was turned into mulch, which Wal-mart, Home Depot, Lowes and many others sold , knowing or unknowingly to consumers. This arsenic treated wood ended up in state, city and school playgrounds as well as business and home owners yards. That way our kids and pets could get it on their hands and into their bodies.
What happened?? Nothing. Even though it was made public, like the cypress is, millions ignored it. Retailers just put signs up saying the mulch might have arsenic, and it sold anyway.

Kid of like the lead toy problem. I was at big lots last week, and right there as soon as you come in the store, were piles of recalled toys discounted.

[BornSkeptic]

As a landscaper and small nursery owner, I always tell clients to avoid cypress mulch because it is and has been over-harvested, and yes, often illegaly, but more often with the consent and even encouragement from local and state government in the name of 'economic development', the two little words that will make anything acceptable. It has the reputation of being more rot resistant, which the centuries-old old growth trees that were harvested a century ago did, but its now no better than pine mulches, which is what I suggest in most instances.

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?" - Jack Handey

[andvoodootoo]

Not long after Katrina, I drove through City Park in New Orleans. One of the levees had, near it's foot, a long row of old cypress trees and they had all been cut down. The trees weren't close enough to the levee to warrant cutting and the stumps that were left we not leaning (which isn't suprising as cypress are very strong and withstand storms well). The trees were cut in the confusion following Katrina and were probably illegally cut by someone looking to make a fast buck off of the valuable cypress wood. Please don't buy cypress mulch. Cypress grow very slow and they are one of our last remaining protections against the hurricanes. Please help us, our government won't.

[yellowdogSC]

AAARRRGGGHHH!!

[Truetuft]

I would suppose that landowners are paid market prices for the cypress that is being cut from their lands. It's a free country and the trees are an asset to the people who own the land. This mulch better not be coming from Federal lands. Is there no re-planting of cypress to replace the trees that were cut as is done in pine forests? I've never bought cypress mulch just for the reason that it's wasteful and shameful to ground hardwood trees for no other purpose than to make garden mulch.

[yellowdogSC]

Truetuft,

YES!

Cypress IS commercially renewable!

Cypress can be purchased in quantity quite cheaply from your local Forestry or Farm Extension Department office. (Check yellow pages under "trees", "forestry" or "farm extension".

Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning this!

[Marnie1]

Over 90% of the trees and forests of this country have been permanently destroyed in our 200+ year history. Even Texas was originally 2/3 forest and wooded land.

More is lost every year. What is replanted is generally in fast growth soft woods that are not even native genus and species.

In maybe 2000 or so years these lost forests and trees (lining rivers and creeks, stabilizing hill sides etc.) would renew themselves if given a chance.

Trees and forests are not a renewable resource. Neither are clean rivers and streams and clean air.

[Jey]

Use pine needles for mulch instead of cypress. Save the trees! Mulch stinks anyway as far as mulching goes. It fades, is unattractive after one month. Pine needles look great and they retain moisture. If someone tells you they're too acidic don't believe them. I have all types of flowers and garden vegetables and I used them around everything. My garden looks great!

[yellowdogSC]

Many cypress trees are more that 1,000 YEARS OLD.

For MULCH?

That's like the practice of shipping America"s old growth trees intact to Japan to be made into toilet paper and disposable diapers. (That"s the REAL argument against protecting the spotted owls, by the way. Their preservation prevented the destruction of these old, rare and beautiful "toilet paper" trees.)

Be disgusted. Be VERY disgusted.

Thank you.

[alkamm]

These trees also hold together natural barriers to hurricanes. In Europe, they would tax those who cut these trees down in order to pay for the inevitable devastation such acts cause. Cut away, but realize that you have to pay a large percentage of your profits to rebuild the city you helped destroy.

[yellowdogSC]

al,

Actually, even dead cypress trees can serve a valuable purpose.

Cypress is essentially waterproof. (Takes several times longer to decay than typical wood.)

They were used for MUCH of Europe's shipbuilding.

Though not at first. The cypress wood was so extraordinary and near perfect in it's beauty it was thought a lie that they were nothing more than "normal" trees, growing from the ground in "America".

Waterproof lumber and logs CAN be used in the rebuilding of a flooded city. (Perhaps not the BEST use, but many times better than when used for "mulch".)

In the south, many love these trees as no other. Some have been dated at nearly 2,000 years.

Thank you.

[maddogbitesback]

Moneyis what it is all about. People aremerely consumers. They have no other value.

[larry278]

Now I know where to sell my old cypress knee lamps if they aren't sold at the garage sale.

[aigeanta]

Holy crap! That should be illegal! ARRGH!