Demand for valuable cypress slow to die.
Saturday February 10, 2007
The News-Press (2-20-07) Chopping down a cypress tree to build a better landscape is like tearing down a historical home for lumber to build a better garage. The end products may be pretty to look at but the price is incalculable and the materials irreplaceable.
If you've been in Florida for more than 48 hours, your vocabulary has already expanded to include words like nature-friendly and environmental impact. Amble along the boardwalk that threads through a wetland sanctuary and you'll discover a buffet of ecological terms that include the likes of otter ponds, pine flats and the grandfathers of the marsh, cypress trees.
Cypress are survivors. They thrive in the rainy season and winter droughts, hold ground in fires and stand like giant exclamation points penetrating the wetlands' leafy canopy.
Chopping down a cypress tree to build a better landscape is like tearing down a historical home for lumber to build a better garage. The end products may be pretty to look at but the price is incalculable and the materials irreplaceable.
If you've been in Florida for more than 48 hours, your vocabulary has already expanded to include words like nature-friendly and environmental impact. Amble along the boardwalk that threads through a wetland sanctuary and you'll discover a buffet of ecological terms that include the likes of otter ponds, pine flats and the grandfathers of the marsh, cypress trees.
Cypress are survivors. They thrive in the rainy season and winter droughts, hold ground in fires and stand like giant exclamation points penetrating the wetlands' leafy canopy.
What they cannot survive is the lumbering operations that have been stealing one of nature's historical treasures an acre at a time since the state's pioneers settled Florida in the 1800s. The hardy trees have been used for furniture, fences and now flower beds. Homeowners insist cypress mulch is a superior landscaping product and longer lasting than alternatives.
The ironic reality is it takes hundreds of years for cypress trees to develop the hardwood cores that gave mulch the reputation for durability. However, over-harvesting has stripped vast areas of the large, mature trees, the ones with hardwood cores.
Younger and younger trees are being chopped and chipped for mulch, which means mulch made from the immature trees is not likely to perform any better than alternative products. It will not look any better, either, since other landscape choices are available in a range of hues, including the hallmark gold-brown earth tones of cypress chips.
Tons of cypress mulch piled on pallets in garden shops make it easy to miss some other truths about cypress trees:
• Experts estimate that when a cypress forest is harvested, between 70 and 80 percent will remain barren forever;
• Cypress trees can live up to 1,500 years and reach 25 feet in girth; but
• It takes up to 600 years for a cypress to grow large enough for the base to be sliced into coffee-table tops.
Demand for cypress has pushed some wetlands to the edge of ecological catastrophe and others are close. But product reputations die as slowly as rumors, said John Cauthen, CEO of Forestry Resources Inc.
"Even though there are several landscape alternatives that are comparable, cypress mulch sales continue to account for about 60 percent of the entire market," he said.
Cauthen, who founded the company in 1983, manufactures landscape materials for wholesale and retail distribution.
In 1985, long before most people even heard the words environmentally friendly, Cauthen established himself as an industry pioneer when Forestry Resources introduced FloriMulch, its signature product.
FloriMulch — an attractive, high-quality alternative to cypress mulch — has all the properties a landscape likes. It is organic, acts as a weed barrier, doesn't float away in rains, helps prevent moisture from evaporating during the dry winter months, is nontoxic, provides an inhospitable habitat for termites, is certified by the Mulch and Soil Council and is state certified as a nematode-free product.
FloriMulch is made from melaleuca trees, a highly invasive exotic that proliferates everywhere in South Florida, destroys habitat, consumes up to 2,200 gallons of water per acre per hour, and until Forestry Resources started to work, it had no natural enemies. On an average day, five to seven acres of melaleuca trees are cleared and turned into mulch.
Other high-quality alternatives to cypress mulch are eucalyptus and pine bark, both renewable resources that are agricultural crops. Pine straw — needles shed by pine trees — is also an excellent weed barrier, and is available by the bale in garden supply stores.
For information about Forestry Resources, landscaping and landscape products, and the Southwest Florida environment, call (239) 334-7343, or visit www.gomulch.com.
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