Louisiana’s huge cypresses have been destroyed in the name of better gardens. But switching to pine straw won’t solve forest loss.
Cypress forest clear cut in Wilkinson County, Georgia.
Photo: Treehugger
“Cutting an 80-to-100-year-old cypress tree for mulch is like taking your dining room furniture and burning it for firewood.” So says John Day, Louisiana State University ecologist.
And then the rug and the whole house catch on fire.
Waterkeeper Alliance, a group working to protect wetlands, rivers, and more of the world’s environmental H20, has come on strong with gardeners. The organization’s 2006 campaign points the finger right at our flowerbeds, where ground up cypress is the mulch du jour. Cypress mulch has been “preferred” by upscale landscaping companies, mainly because it’s pricey. To chop down a 100 year old tree and grind it into kibbles for your rosebed is the yard equivalent of a polar bear pelt in the livingroom, only in this case the dead tree doesn’t have glass-eyes to glower with.
Waterkeeper Alliance, along with University of Florida scientists, the Louisiana Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation—among others—all say that clear-cutting of cypress trees in swamplands of the U.S. needs to be stopped.
“At a time when the nation must invest billions to restore Louisiana’s wetlands for hurricane protection, cypress forests are being ground into mulch. Cypress wetlands prevent flooding by absorbing excess water like a sponge, controlling flood height and speed. These wetlands save lives and prevent the destruction of coastal cities.” The swamplands are also habitat and migratory stopover territories for hundreds of wild animal species.
And to beat all, cypress mulch, despite its uppity advertising, is no better than pine or many other materials at conserving moisture in our gardens. Sylvia K. Beauchamp of University of Florida recommends “melaleuca chips, pine nuggets and pine straw” as perfectly good alternatives. Actually, the best garden mulch going “is something most gardeners already have on hand: yard waste. Researchers at the Ohio Agricultural Research Center found that composted yard waste increased the number of flowers on rhododendron plants by 300 percent over plants grown without mulch. Wood mulch gave no such benefit.”
Consider that the Louisiana coast is disappearing “at about thirty-five square miles per year or three acres per hour.” Tough to figure where we’re going to toss all that precious mulch if the land itself is submerged.
It’s obvious that without a market for their cypress mulch, these companies would quit clear-cutting. So, who’s behind the wheel of this Cadillac? We gardeners are.
(Originally published: HFP April 19, 2006)
Update: The loss of cypress forests to garden mulch raised alarm in 2006 and even calls to boycott the product. Black Warrior River Keeper pressed further, asking consumers to sign a pledge against using it. Florida imposed regulations on all cypress products in 2011 and consequently much of the mulch business moved west to Louisiana (where the bald cypress happens also to be the state tree.)
Cypress trees suffering from greater salinity
Photo: National Geographic
Over the past decade, that controversy has cooled some. The National Gardeners Association advises, “Avoid cypress mulch when possible due to sustainability concerns….Choose mulch from plentiful regional sources instead.”
“Avoid…when possible”? Pretty mild stuff in comparison to the Black Warrior’s oath.
At the close of an EPA study of cypress wetlands in Georgia, 2011, people from all sides of the issue gathered to assess the reasons behind the loss of cypress forest and potential threats. Tom Oder of Treehugger reported extensively and evenhandedly on the conference. No big surprise, mulch-industry leaders concluded that the study had proven growth of cypress forests “far outstripped mortalities and removals.” Bill Sapp, a lawyer from the Southern Environmental Law Center, didn’t quite see things that way. In his view, the report challenged claims that cypress mulch is more durable than alternatives and, more fundamentally, revealed enduring threats to the cypress ecosystems. The law center published its findings in 2012.
County distribution map of Taxodium distichum – Southern Bald-Cypress
Map: BONAP’s Taxonomic Data Center
In the years since, mulch industry people and ecologists have come to agree on at least one problem: major shifts in hydrology, new “reservoirs, canals, channels, and other structures have changed how water flows”. These big infrastructure projects have probably caused the greatest losses.
Melanie Torbett of the Louisiana Forestry Association writes, “the natural hydrology of Louisiana’s swamps has been disrupted over the years by the construction of flood control and forced drainage projects, canals and navigation channels, as well as some naturally-occurring forces. Tremendous acreage that once had seasonal wet and dry spells is now permanently flooded with either fresh or salt water. Land along the coast is sinking and Gulf waters are rising.” Torbett concludes,
“Cypress trees in the region are being drowned, not cut down.”
Granted, taking the word of the Louisiana Forestry Association on the condition of cypress forests is a lot like looking to the Texas Cattlemen’s Association for dietary advice. But environmentalists have agreed. Kristi Trail of the Ponchartrain Conservancy points to the massive Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, built as “a shortcut from the Port of New Orleans to the Gulf. During Hurricane Katrina, it funneled storm surge into St. Bernard and Orleans parishes.”
Trail explained, “A lot of salt water was able to enter our basin, change the salinity of these soils, and a lot of these cypress trees died as a result.” The outlet has since been closed and the conservancy has been busy replanting cypress.
Just this spring in Iberville Parish, conservationists were mobilizing against a proposed bridge slated to be built through an old growth cypress forest there.
It’s a lot tougher to pass a law through the Florida legislature, close a waterway, or stop a bridge project than it is to refrain from cypress mulch or, even plant a cypress tree. Perhaps in the twenty years since this “Cadillac” was accused of sundering the cypress forests, we well-meaning gardeners and others know that taking a pledge and switching to pine bark won’t solve the problem. It’s going to take political organization, muscle and foresight.
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