Mushrooms

Symptoms: While rain is often desperately desired for lawns and gardens, it can bring problems. High humidity and excess moisture can cause mushrooms to literally pop up overnight. How: Mushrooms are the reproductive, or fruiting, stage of fungi. They are quite common following prolonged wet weather and often disappear as soon as soils start to dry. They are annoying but cause no damage to the lawn or garden. Decomposing wood, such as an old stump or the roots left behind from a tree cut down several years ago, or construction debris buried after the house was built can also be causes of mushroom growth. Most fungi in lawns are beneficial because they decompose organic matter buried in the soil, releasing nutrients that are then available for plant growth. Treatment: These nuisance fungi can survive in soil for years and will only produce fruiting structures when conditions are favorable. There is nothing homeowners can do to keep mushrooms from coming up. Merely removing the mushroom doesn’t remove the underground portion from which they are growing. But removing them will prevent them from spreading more spores that can lead to future pop-ups. Simply mow them or kick them over. Remember, they may continue to appear periodically during favorable environmental conditions until the organic matter they are feeding on is gone.