Ask Burton!

This week, a question about an issue many of us have, that thankfully isn’t hard to deal with.

 

Q: I have hard, mushroom-like growth coming out of the soil near my flowerbeds and yard. It’s not the mold that grows in my mulch sometimes. Do I need to treat a fungus in my turf? It’s worse where I lost a tree a few years ago.

 

A: In this case, no. Your turf will be fine.

 

MANY of us have seen some of this sort of growth in the past year or two. The winter storm of 2021 made most homeowners lose shrubs and the occasional tree – even large shrubs and trees! This growth is from one of the many perfectly normal fungi found in soil, busily decomposing the large, woody roots of those lost plants. They’re nature’s clean-up crew – they’re not harming your turf and will likely pop up occasionally until the wood in ground is largely broken down. The roots of a mature tree go a lot further than you think into the yard!

 

Pick them up with a shovel to get them out of the way. If they’re a nuisance… Well, the only way to truly get rid of them is to get rid of the wood underground. Since digging up half your lawn isn’t practical, we recommend ignoring them, other than removing bits above ground. Fungicides won’t make much of a difference.

 

It’s not permanent, but you’re likely to see some more of these for the next few years.