Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

That fact that your tree is a bald cypress makes it possible that the tree will survive. Because the bald cypress often grows in swamp areas with water over portions of the tree, it is less susceptible to suffocation. Beyond that, we have no idea. The tree is deciduous, the only cypress that is (thus, the word "bald" in its common name) so it should now go into a semi-dormant stage and hopefully begin to recover. We're just gardeners and volunteers, not plant pathologists, and this was the first time we had been asked a question about putting 3 feet of the trunk of a tree under soil. The message here is that plants should be allowed to grow where they are native, and in conditions that are normal for them. They have evolved over millions of years to that environment and those conditions, and cannot change overnight to adjust to changed conditions. But plants also are programmed to survive, so hopefully your bald cypress will recover and go on for many more years.