Mulch Warning (1 Viewer)

With spring right around the corner, some of us might try to spruce things up a little in our gardens while watching the birds come to our feeders. I received this today in my email, and thought I would share it. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but I guess it makes sense...

Mulch Warning

If you use mulch around your house be very careful about buying mulch
this year. After the Hurricane in New Orleans many trees were blown
over. These trees were then turned into mulch and the state is trying to
get rid of tons and tons of this mulch to any state or company who will
come and haul it away. So it will be showing up in Home Depot and Lowes
at dirt cheap prices with one huge problem; Formosan Termites will be
the bonus in many of those bags. New Orleans is one of the few areas in
the country were the Formosan Termites has gotten a strong hold and
most of the trees blown down were already badly infested with those
termites. Now we may have the worst case of transporting a problem to
all parts of the country that we have ever had. These termites can eat
a house in no time at all and we have no good control against them, so
tell your friends that own homes to avoid cheap mulch and know were it
came from.

Mike

I wonder if this would also mean pine straw?

I guess there's some truth to this...http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/termites/

Mike

This is FALSE. From Snopes.com (one of the most respected internet hoax-verification websites):

"...Although the possibility always exists that wood products moved from one area to another might harbor and spread termites (no matter how stringent the controls in place to prevent such an occurrence), the gist of the message quoted above — that tons of termite-infested trees are being been hauled away from the New Orleans by anyone who wants them, then turned mulch that will soon be showing up (with termites) in major home improvement chain stores all over the U.S. — is overblown. For starters, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry imposed a quarantine on several parishes back in October 2005 specifically to prevent the accidental movement of Formosan subterranean termite to other areas.

Whatever the actual risk of termites turning up in mulch might be, however, the fact remains (and is the key to the "False" rating here) that — contrary to the warning expressed above — major home improvement chains such as Home Depot and Lowes are just about the safest outlets from which to buy mulch. Major retailers are generally much more aware and observent of quarantines, and they typically sell mulch in packages that identify their point of origin. Additionally, a representative of the Home Depot chain of home improvement stores informed us that they don't sell mulch from suppliers in the New Orleans area:

'The Home Depot does not use any mulch suppliers from the New Orleans area. We have very strict policies and procedures in place to ensure the integrity of the mulch products sold in our stores. In fact, all our mulch suppliers are required to be certified by the Mulch and Soil Council (MSC), who created the industry standards and criteria for mulch and soil certification and inspection. You can find the MSC certification on the back of every bag.' "

This is just an excerpt for the full story, go to:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/termites.asp

If you ever receive warning e-mails and "true story" e-mails about ANY SUBJECT, please go to Snopes.com and/or Hoaxbusters.org to check it out before spamming your friends and their friends, and their friends and so on. Sometimes it is legitimate, but more often than not in aint. Please send this to everybody you forwarded the original e-mail.

One would have thought that the stuff would need to be well composted too (at least a year) as uncomposted wood mulch removes nitrogen from the soil.