A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Termites in mulch

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 Lowe's 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.

Here is a link if I can do it right
http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/en/environment/insects/Termites/formosan_termites/

Thanks for the heads-up, Tina...

Dianna

Wow! That should be illegal! Once they get to a new region, I'd think they're there for good!

Wow! That is just crazy letting them spread those termites all over the place!

That's just WRONG!!!! :p

We had termites eat the floor up in our livingroom. Had to replace all the 2X8 and plywood. We replaced them with CCA treated 2X8's. They even ate the 2X4 wall studs all the way to the ceiling.

Then we installed the Sentracon System.

That ought to fix them.

I don't think I've ever actually seen a termite.....

Our house is 100 years old and we had to have a termite inspection when we bought it and it passed, so I guess that is good.

I know they can be really terrible.

I just have to remember not to buy any cheap mulch. :p

Whoa!!

It just shouldn't be allowed. They shouldn't write rules if they are going to break them so blantently ( Not transporting pests knowingly)

Termite damage can be very expensive, cost us about $6500, and we still don't have any floor covering. With own income tax refund this year we are going to buy floor covering.

Wow Amigatec....that's terrible!

I first noticed it when I saw the floor was pulling away from the wall, it was about a 1 1/2" below the wall and very bouncy.

The Exterminator was $1500, most of that was for the Sentracon System, and the Carpenters cost $5000.

The termites had eaten back about 16' into the 2X8's, we replaced about 3/4's of them and only had 3 or 4 to go, so I told them to replace them too.

All total we replaced everything from the bottom of the studs in the wall all the way to the foundation, plus 3 or 4 wall studs.

I was NOT happy.

Hi Tina,

Thanks for the warning! The link worked and there was a lot of valuable information at the site. I am really surprised that they would be allowed to send this mulch all over the country. What are they thinking??? Maybe I will just skip buying any mulch this year.

patches

THIS IS AN INTERNET HOAX, you should not believe what all comes thought your email.


The Mulch & Soil Council has been working with universities, retailers and web sites to provide the correct information. The Council has issued a press release to the general media to debunk the issue. The MSC press release can be found at the following site:
Mulch hoax

When I began reading this I couldn't stop thinking ....how in the world would the termite make it through the composting process with such extreme heat. Well you answered my question.

Thank you Buglady for providing us with the correct information. There is sooo much information out there in the cyber world that sometimes it is hard to know what is correct anymore.

Thank you Buglady

It had the makings for an Internet legend, but since it seemed to come from a legitimate site I really didn't question it to much.

I don't normally fall for these things, but this had a tad bit of truth to it.

Besides sunlight kills termites anyway.

I agree that this one is a hoax, even if the critters did survive the mulching process, and got passed the quarantine which was imposed right after the hurricane, they would not move much further north then they are already since they can not aclimate themselves to colder climates. If one were to look at the distribution of the Formosan termite you would see that none are located any further north then northern Texas anywhere in the world.

Yes buglady thatnks for the right info! If i hadn't ssen that i would of been nervious to buy mulch and every year we need ALOT of mulch! It's like $500 to have them come out and mulch the gardens and imagine if there where termites in the mulch. Talk about alot of $$$ fixing everything

Always glad to help... hate to see bugs charged with crimes that they didn't commit