Lawn Mushrooms:
A Fungus Among Us
By Daniel McCall
About this time every year, it happens. After nurturing your lawn through summer’s perils of drought and grubs, you are faced with a new challenge. Mushrooms! A little cool weather and a good rain is usually all it takes to turn your perfect lawn into home sweet home for every fungi this side of the Mississippi. What does it mean for your lawn? What can you do about it? I am glad you asked.
First, it is helpful to know how mushrooms work. Mushrooms are actually fungus. Don’t get too worked up! Fungi have a pretty bad reputation, but most are harmless and some are even beneficial. The mushrooms we see are the fruits of a fungus that live underground.
That’s right, they can lurk there all year long with no sign of life and then one day, you find a whole mushroom forest. The underground fungus spread can spread in some pretty interesting ways. Sometimes you might see have a fairy ring, which is a perfect circle of mushrooms.
Many types of mushrooms feed on decaying wood. There could be a dead root or stump under your yard that is providing them with nutrients. In a way, mushrooms indicate a healthy lawn with lots of organic matter. Those rotting wood bits will feed your grass, too. And those decaying mushrooms also provide nitrogen.
You may have figured out by now that there is no easy way to get rid of mushrooms. Since they are not actually plants, you can leave the herbicides in the garage. They best way to handle them is to outlast them. The average mushroom has a pretty short lifespan. If it makes you feel better, you can stomp ‘em, mow ‘em, or cut ‘em. Just be aware that you are probably spreading there spores much more efficiently than they ever could.
My advice is to try to convince your neighbors that you want the mushrooms to be there. Arrange a bunch of garden gnomes around the trouble spots and those mushrooms will be part of a whimsical décor. Another strategy is to remind everyone that box turtles like mushrooms, and you wouldn’t want to starve one of our most fascinating animals, would you? I didn’t think so. Or you can become a mushroom expert and impress everybody. Did you know that the inner flesh of Gyroporus cyanescens turns bright blue when exposed to air? Or that the gill’s of the Jack O’ Lantern mushroom glow in the dark. Pretty cool huh? If you play your cards right your neighbors will be begging you to help spread these amazing specimens to their yard.
Finally, a word of caution….DONT EAT WILD MUSHROOMS. I mentioned that most mushrooms are basically harmless, but if you eat them, all bets are off. Every year some mushroom expert ends up in the hospital because he thought that that deadly fringed watchyamacallit was actually a tasseled thingamabob. Buy your mushrooms from the grocery store, and you will live a lot longer.