Mulch made from baldcypress and the closely related pondcypress is prized by landscapers because its long strands create a lasting mulch bed. The native cypress forests of North America, concentrated along the southern Atlantic and Gulf Coast waterways, have been decimated by centuries of logging, erosion and development. Now, vast tracts of cypress are being clear cut for the production of cypress mulch.
For the most part, mulch is a byproduct of logging for other products. Hardwood bark and pine bark mulch are produced when logs are stripped of their bark before sawing. Bark is thus a byproduct, and could be considered sustainable (depending on the source of the wood).
However, the cypress mulch industry is far larger than the cypress wood products industry. Most cypress forests are only 80 to 100 years old, and the slow-growing trees are not large enough for commercial wood production.
This unsustainable practice is devastating second growth cypress forests. A new organization, Save Our Cypress, is raising awareness of the environmental damage caused by the cypress industry. Environmental damage is not limited to the trees themselves. Cypress trees are part of a complex web of wetlands that support high species diversity of plants and animals. Remnant coastal forests are for the most part protected now. However, inland forests have little protection in central and northern Louisiana.
There are inexpensive alternatives to cypress mulch, including pine bark and hardwood bark. Pine bark comes mostly from plantation-grown forests and is a byproduct of pine lumber and pulp production. It is probably the most sustainably produced mulch material.
For homeowners and landscape contractors, there is a simple decision to make: cypress forests are much more important than mulch. Choose an alternative.
Picture: Stem of pondcypress, Taxodium ascendens, South Carolina. Picture by Tom Kimmerer
Species mentioned in this article:
- Baldcypress, often called cypress, Taxodium distichum, Cupressaceae
- Pondcypress, Taxodium ascendens, Cupressaceae
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