Let me start off by saying I never pass e-mails around (chain mail), but this seems like a real hazard, so I sent it to my family and I wanted to make sure and share this with the farmgirls. Before I forwarded this on to you, I looked up information on the Formosan Termites, at http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/termites/ and it really seemed to be a problem. So here is the info I received.
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 stat e 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.
When I feel spring coming I have to plant or I’ll go crazy!
I just went to snopes.com to check the info there. This is a website dedicated to either supporting or discrediting the urban legend. They said that although it is remotely possible; Home Depot does not buy from the state of Loiusiana and New Orleans debris is being quarantined by the gevernment and is not allowed to be used for mulch. It is an interesting read if you get a chance to check it out. They do refernce the LSU original message or warning.
Hey ladies, If you go to active topics at the top of the page and scroll down to garden gate you will find that there is already a thread about this e-mail warning and 2 pages of discussion with other info you might want to know. Eileen
an e-mail I just received about mulch
Posted - Mar 11 2006 : 12:53:59 PM
So here is the info I received.
