This was forwarded to me.

If you buy mulch this spring and summer, make sure you know where it
came from.

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 where the Formosan Termites has gotten a stronghold 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 there apparently is no good control against them, so tell your friends that own homes to avoid cheap mulch and know were it came from.

Thanks Dals!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Kinzel.

Taken from www.wzzm13.com

The warning is popping up in email boxes across the country: A destructive termite in the South could arrive at your home through bags of mulch made from infested woody debris in hurricane-stricken parts of Louisiana.

But bug experts and others say the rumor is not true and that Michigan homeowners and gardeners have plenty of reasons not to worry.

It's "very, very, very unlikely," said Howard Russell, an entomologist at Michigan State University.

The e-mails, which began circulating in the last week, speculate that infested mulch carries destructive Formosan subterranean termites and that bags of the stuff will be sold at big box stores everywhere this spring gardening season.

Spokespeople from both the Home Depot and Lowe's said this week that they do not buy mulch from New Orleans or any hurricane areas and sell only mulch certified by the Mulch and Soil Council, which sets industry standards for inspection.

"Someone is using the Internet to cause hysteria about a problem that doesn't really exist," according to a release from Bob Odom, Louisiana commissioner of agriculture and forestry. Louisiana has already banned the transport of untreated woody debris from the hurricane area.

Sally Arbuckle of Farmington Hills was forwarded the mulch email warning on Tuesday.

"One of my friends tends to send me interesting things. She knows I'm interested in gardening. I do a lot of mulching," Arbuckle said.

She was worried about the possibility but is reassured to hear local experts debunk the theory.

Russell said there are several reasons the Formosan termite isn't a threat to Michigan:

--The termite probably wouldn't survive the process of grinding the wood to make mulch. But even if it did, it would die if spread in the garden, from lack of moisture.

--Michigan winters are too cold for Formosan termites to survive. The Carolinas are as far north as they're known.

--And here's the biggie: Given all the commerce between the southeast portion of the country and Michigan, "If the termite was capable of establishing here, it already would have done so," Russell says.

It hasn't, he adds.

Still, that isn't stopping people from calling and e-mailing Russell and MSU Extension staff members like Sandra Goeddeke-Richards at the Macomb County office in Clinton Township.

Over the last week, Goeddeke-Richards said she's received daily inquiries from master gardeners concerned about mulch and termites. She said the rumor appears false based on her research and reading an investigation into the rumor on the urban legends reference site, www.snopes.com.
Goeddeke-Richards said the rumor might have an upside if it spurs awareness of how pests can move into new areas with goods from far away.

Her bottom line: "Use local material whenever possible," she said.

Contact MARTY HAIR at 313-222-2005 or mhair@freepress.com.

One thing to say to you kinzel. Smooch me on my . LOL Guess that teachs me to listen to what the MIL sends me. .

*snickers*