Wednesday 13 November 2013

I have honey fungus in my garden and am unconcerned




Armillaria mellea, Honey fungus, bootlace fungus. These three names describe the fungus that bring a shudder of fear to most gardeners. To read the gardening press honey fungus is the kiss of death to a garden! The story goes that black rootlike, shoelace-like, fungus strands invade the whole garden from dead tree stumps roots as they spread to new hosts. It is true, it does spread that way as it insinuates it’s way through the soil. But I consider that in most gardens armillaria does very little harm.
There are some significant exceptions and many gardeners will say I am very complacent!

My oenothera is being strangled


Girdled with black rhizomorphs
I am grateful to former student and landscape designer Davy Blakemore who spotted  fungus fructifications on the stump of a dead tree in my garden. I was lifting some plants for him and we found this fantastic example of a seemingly strangulated oenothera garlanded with a beautiful necklace of the toadstool spore-fruiting body. I could sense Davy draw his breath and noticed the look of fear in his eyes. Dare he refuse the plants that his former tutor was giving him? Clearly he had not attended my lectures!

I was thrilled to find this rare example of a plant in the process of being invaded. The next morning I rushed down the road to show it to plant biologist Peter Williams. Like a good scientist he suggested we wash it to examine it more clearly, and then to dissect it. He immediately set to work with his scalpel. Anticipating the likely controversial line in my blog I casually observed that the infected oenothera looked healthy and vigorous. Could it be that rather than being a harmful fungus invasion, that it was a developing mycorrhizal association? Peter is an expert on mycorrhiza and quickly dismissed my suggestion  He is too nice to be rude and after consideration explained why this was a rather silly idea.

Black bootlace has emerged from the ground




Case study 1. My first experience of armillaria

Forty five years ago when we moved into our new house in Bolton Percy we called our home Betula and planted a Young’s Weeping Birch! The house adjacent was called Corylus. Much subtler as the family name was Hazel! The house across the narrow country lane was called Ashdown. The relevant ash was in my new garden, it had been cut back to a huge five foot bore stump. It was the start of my lifetime experience of cutting down trees as close to the ground as one could go without damaging a chainsaw, but not wasting energy digging  them out or hiring a stump grinder. I resolved to make the stump an attractive garden feature by covering it with clematis and other scrambling plants. I suppose it was the  start of my mingle-mangling! I feared the stump might eventually get honey fungus.
And sure enough after five years I saw the first fructifications on the tree stump and very soon later armillaria toadstools appeared in my lawn. Not being confident of my identification - I still fear to eat a wild common mushroom - I took it to college. My botanist friend Mike Ashford walked into my office, declared “nothing wrong with that” and took it home and ate it. Apparently armillaria fructifications taste quite delicious.
An so the saga started. Bootlaces threaded everywhere. I was already a no dig gardener and rarely encountered the fungal rhizomorphs but they were to be discovered up to forty yards away from the stump. When Tim and Ben were toddlers we took up our plastic lined pond and converted to a more childproof bog garden. The underside of the plastic was covered with a beautiful matrix of grasping fingers. They looked rather like the tentacles of a Doctor Who monster clawing to emerge from a subterranean grave!

This acacia was killed in 2010 by the cold. I cut it to the ground and for no good reason it was covered with soil. When I removed the soil it exposed these invading ‘claws’ 

The point of my story is that in the next twenty years I never lost a plant. I did joke that perhaps I lost a flag iris and having seen the top picture I can now envisage it’s demise! I rationalized my experience by concluding that plant death is often a syndrome; a combination of susceptible plant species, plant age, soil conditions - especially  drought and poor drainage - and the actual pathogen. Further research - we could not google then - suggested that there might be more virulent strains.



Case study 2. No plant harmed by the fungus, killed by a bureaucrat’s pen.
Chestnut avenue was a beautiful track lined by sixty magnificent old trees. A new road was to be constructed in our village of Bolton Percy.There were two alternative routes.The crux of the affair and close to the heart of the whole village community, was whether Chestnut Avenue was to be widened with the necessary demise of the trees. It was due to go to court where the result would be decided in a typical British way.
One hired ‘expert’ found strands of armillaria. The trees were doomed! Such is the reputation of honey fungus, the case never came forward and the trees were felled. Dammit, where-ever there are old trees there will be signs of armillaria. Old trees and armillaria go together like chalk and cheese. The fungus was doing no significant harm. The trees were good for another sixty years. What a shame.

Somebody found black bootlaces

Case study 3. Very real damage
We were on a student tour and visited a famous parkland in Cheshire. It had a very fine grove of ancient one hundred year old rhododendrons. The whole avenue was gradually dying, killed by armillaria. The manager was beside himself. He cursed and feared armillaria with very good reason.
Some plants such as rhododendron, lilac and privet are particularly susceptible to honey fungus when they are very old. Honey fungus will gain some kind of ascendency over the years when soil conditions are bad. Often poor drainage will create bad aeration and root death. Dead roots and woody organic material sustain the fungus and the death of deep roots  make the effects of periods of drought more severe. It’s wet enough in Cheshire at the best of times and some of their soils are heavy. It had been a particularly wet season. Who knows it might have been a particularly virulent fungus strain? 
I would argue that it is rare and very real events such as this one that gives rise to the fearsome reputation of this normally ubiquitous and often insignificant fungus.

Case study 4. A new on-going case
So my old friend has returned at the top of my new garden. It must have been with me unnoticed for a few years now, growing from the stumps of any of a dozen cut back trees. All my plants in the infected part of my garden (bar one) are healthy. I have also discovered black fungus rhizomorphs next door in Cathi’s garden where I am in the process of replanting. Sorry Cathi I have not yet broken the alarming news to you that your soil is a seething mass of black bootlaces but I assure you that you have  nothing to fear. 

There are a lot of dead tree stumps in Cathi’s garden

Hot off the press, now that I am suddenly recognizant of this invader I have noticed another dead stump emitting the characteristic melliferous smell at the bottom of my garden!
Now I have found armillaria invading my garden I must look again at a rather tired looking old lilac, a known susceptible genus. For some years now I have pondered it’s removal. Perhaps I should start to panic, another susceptible species, an old flowering cherry is just a few boot steps away!  It is extremely healthy. Over the last twelve years I have established about seventy  different uncommon trees in my garden. Can I be certain that in another ten years they will  still be there?

You can see that I have already in effect written off this lilac by allowing ivy to invade. 
Am I being too complacent?

No, not in my own garden, but yes in terms of being a worldwide problem. I would have liked to merely report that armillaria is a force for good in nature’s carbon cycle and a desirable mycorrhizal host for certain wild orchids and other rare plants. Unfortunately I cannot deny in certain sectors of forestry and orchard production it is a significant scurge. You can see on the net sections of hillsides where hundreds of tree have been killed by this fungus. Large financial resources have been invested in investigating it’s control. Some areas of land are infected with huge bio-masses of infective fungal rhizomorphs. In some cases they are hundreds or even thousands of years old, repeatedly refreshed by new generations of trees. Some of these biomasses are genetically identical, in effect a huge monster.

Armillaria mellea and it’s many relatives - there are at least seven British species, not to mention individual strains - can be a real problem.
It’s just that I want to suggest the world is a very big place and that there are millions of acres including your own garden, where the fungus  will be present and need not be a cause for concern.

 More armillaria

 Armillaria bootlaces have been likened to fibre optic cables of parallel strands of fungus hypha

Photographed on our recent Tyne walk, Amonita the fly agric fungus has a symbiotic relationship with birch 
Photographed on our recent Tyne walk, Amonita the fly agric fungus has a symbiotic relationship with birch 

Can anyone tell me if this is the Turkey Tail bracket  fungus growing on a cut back birch in Bolton Percy churchyard?




52 comments:

  1. I don't know very much about honey fungus, or I didn't before reading your post. Amazing to see how that nemophila is being strangled. I hope your lilac and cherry don't succumb, it would be such a shame.

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    1. Thanks for the good wishes Jo. The cherry is the well known variety Kanzan and when we moved in twelve years ago it was severely overgrown with 5 trunks! I t is now whittled down to one trunk and is a very fine tree, It is very healthy and I have no fears for it. I am prepared to write off the lilac if necessary but after sounding off about it in this post I had better leave it to report back! It does have a strong new growth coming from the ground and as I believe it is on its own root and is not grafted it might well be my future tree!
      I want to thank you for inadvertently bringing to my attention my typo of calling it nemophila! It's oenothera, not biennis the common one, but a variety that self seeds and comes in yellow, orange or pink

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    2. ps I have changed it to oenothera on the photo!

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  2. Honey fungus is a topic that comes up regularly on various gardening forums and the replies must send shivers down the spines of those who asked the question. I know nothing of honey fungus and based purely on what I've previously read tend to ignore any fungus I find growing in the garden. I tend to prefer the 'ignorance is bliss' approach - I worry enough that plants will thrive without adding another reason that they might not.
    I enjoyed this post Roger and I do hope Cathi is as open minded as you.

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    1. A good attitude Angie, many things in gardening are overhyped. I have a post ready for a couple of weeks time on Russian vine!
      I suggest you enjoy all the interesting ecology in your garden and I was delighted in my research to find there are some plants such as a rare orchid which derive sustenance from honey fungus.

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  3. Must admit I always dreaded honey fungus appearing so your post is some comfort. As for eating foraged fungi - no way would I risk it!

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  4. Another fascinating post, Roger. You ought to call youself not the "No-dig Gardener", but the "Myth-busting Blogger"!

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    1. Oh no the no dig is my passion Mark, but just wait for what I have to say about the Russian vine next month!

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    2. I know you are being jovial Mark but I don't think armillaria is a myth but just grossly over-rated and over feared. From my point of view if I lose my lilac amongst thousands of other healthy plants it's just a planting opportunity or even of ecological interest when I observe wether or not its sucker makes a new tree!
      I think there is a blame culture in gardening, one about which I will future post. It's about gardeners needing a scapegoat for their gardening losses. Things like armillaria and weedkillers often get the blame when they are completely innocent!
      I wrote about shrub death in my recent post, Why has my shrub died?
      As to myths if any passing reader wants to know about my myths they should just pop myth into my search box! (promotion over)

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  5. Power of the press Roger, plus a blame culture in general not just in gardening. I have fly agric round by birch trees and look forward to their emergence every year. Your fungus looks like Trametes versicolor, the Turkey Tail bracket fungus, although, I would have expected it to be browner in colour, I am no expert but it is the most common of its type.

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    1. Thanks for the confirmation Rick. I think it was white because it was very fresh fungal growth. I was at Bolton Percy this week and it now looks much browner

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    2. 95% Turkey Tail and only a 5% chance of Smokey Bracket. The bracket are white because they are OLD - the rain has washed all the pigments out and the sun has bleached them.

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  6. I am opposed generally to having a knee-jerk reaction and killing things off. It seems to me that we do too much killing, and not enough waiting and seeing, or work-arounds, so I enjoyed your post. although I don't think I would want to try eating the fungus!

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    1. yes I agree it is best to watch before making decisions. I might have created myself an image of always spraying glyphosate but other than this I rarely do anything about pest and disease other than sometimes squash them!
      And no, the toadstools don't look very appetising to me either- I do think they actually look very attractive but not to eat.

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  7. A very interesting post and very comforting. My garden was an old orchard and we had to cut down six dead cherry and apple trees. It is so expensive to hire a stump grinder. Roses have also died and I learnt that they are the same family as apple trees so susceptible. I have been too worried to replant any trees as the fungus comes up all over the lawn no doubt feeding off old roots. Anyway you have reassured me that as long as I look after new plantings and keep them well fed and watered maybe I will get away with it. Thank you. By the way is it true that the fungus glows in the dark?
    Chloris.

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    1. A few very interesting points Chloris (or is that about glowing in the dark- the word for the phenomenon when the fungus glows is very similar, if my BTbroadband was better-it has been hell today, I would look it up)
      Best of luck with your new trees, just to be on the safe side don't plant susceptible ones, although I would certainly risk apples.
      I think you have got your wires a little crossed ( or should I say laces?) with the apples. Because your dead trees were apples does not does not in any way mean that the armillaria will particularly attack apples and even less so other members of the apple family. Apple replant disease is perhaps what you are thinking of and that is overrated too- just don't plant very close to the old stumps.
      As to your comment about the Jack'O Lantern phenomenon of glowing, yes any part of the fungus glows but it needs pitch black to see it. In the trenches of WW1 the fungus pieces were used as a marker. I have never seen it myself but I think I will go out now (wearing my dressing down) to have a look. You will know from my post that I should expect to find some!

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    2. She was talking about Honey Fungus glowing in the dark, not Jack 'O Lantern (which has only been seen once in the UK growing in RBG Edinburgh). Both glow in the dark, but it is said of HF that only the bootlaces glow, they need to be wet, and must be pitch black.

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  8. Did you see this week's Gardeners World? Monty Don mentioned honey fungus!

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    1. No, I am not really fan of gardening tv! I don't have a direct line to the great man.
      But I have joined the Gardeners World website this weekend and intend to start making comments.

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  9. Hi Roger
    You've somewhat cheered me. 4 years ago we moved into a garden that had been an orchard. This Spring a beautiful twisted willow didn't come into leaf and was confirmed dead by the dreaded HF by the RHS team. We felled this but a Sorbus ( planted 2 year ago) also died. I now have an apple tree nearby that is looking ill ( after the most wonderful crop of apples) and has sprouted lots of toadstools. I blame all the old stumps in the garden and the very wet summer in 2012 when it was almost waterlogged at times. We just live in hope as I have a 2 year old pergola planted with roses nearby. I can't dig the old stumps out ( and anyway believe this might disturb things and make it worse!). We're resigned to losing more.

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    1. Hello anon
      I am surprised my article cheered you, I would have thought with all your problems you would be banging the table (as I would) and tell me what a complacent idiot I am!
      Some sites can be much more of a problem than others and it sounds that in addition to ample sources of the pathogen from the stumps you have a drainage problem.
      You will find me more often advising "You have a drainage problem or a drought problem" than saying 'your plant has been killed by pathogen x, y or z. At the moment I have a a cut leaf maple in a tub showing coral spot. I am not saying the coral spot is killing my shrub, I am saying "what have I done wrong for my plant to get coral spot?"
      sorry I can be a bit wordy!

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  10. Hi,I have a 2 acre woodland garden jam packed with magnolias,rhoda's,acers etc.All the nice stuff.
    I also have honey fungus everywhere,you eventually learn to live with it,you loose good stuff,and other stuff fights it off or even bounces back.The plants near bamboo thrive and are allways unscathed.There are always surprises,however,honey fungus has taken out my three oldest,biggest asparagus plants this year.About 12 years old.Lots of h.f. observations and stories over the years.

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    1. You seem to have more problems than me Rhoda but I like your philosophical attitude and no doubt you derive much interest from your fungus. I would love to hear some of your stories, feel free to share them.

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    2. just checking to see if this posts

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    3. yes it has Rhoda, look forward to hearing from you!

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  11. Hi,I've tried to reply several times and lost everything.One more time.
    I have got interested in Honey Fungus,out of necessity and the lack of information.I have been gardening here for 17 years.The garden has many soil types and is on old farmland, that was ancient woodland.Gets very wet,but dries out quickly and has many old stumps,hence Honey Fungus.I have lost maybe 30 shrubs /trees out of maybe two thousand,so it is not as bad as the media make out .It only really becomes a problem when you lose a favorite or 3/4 plants together,leaving a gap.
    The garden is now woodland,covered in leaf litter and is left to fend for itself.This it what I've found out through trial and error..I don't strim around plants,as any wounds will let our friend in, as will root rock and weeding.I use roundup ,which kills most weeds and grass and incourages moss,good tip for japanese style gardens.Honey Fungus loves plastic sheeting,weed supressing mats,old carpets etc,and these should be avoided at all costs.Stressed plants will be prime targets..When I replant,I use bamboo,enkianthus and magnolia,these seem to be imune or chase the fungus away.When I have an ailing plant,I feed, and scatter wood ash around the base,this seems to work most of the time.The fungus is indiscriminate,it will follow a tree root, taking out two rhododendrons of the same variety,only to leave a third,and you can plant in an infected stump only to see the plant thrive.It seems to weaken plants at ten years or so and they will fight it off and recover.Some will succumb no matter what you do.I don't think the usual tar oil remedy works and when used as a preventative has failed miserably,it is also expensive and so totally useless for a large garden.Japanese maples take a hammering but my best is growing in an infected stump.The asparagus plants I previously mentioned were in a tunnel,so the fungus also likes hot and dry.I propagate and hybrdize many plants,so am always trying to outwit something or rather.I hope this will be of use to some people and reassure others that having Honey Fungus is not the end of the world.As I have said,I have it everywhere in my garden and you can deal with it,If I think of anything else ,I will post.Happy gardening.....by the way,I use roundup everywhere in the garden,except near the vegetables ofcourse,have done so for years,and have a huge worm population ,carpets of bluebells and wood anemonies,and every kind of fern,fungi and wildlife you can think of,.....if it is harming anything,I honestly can't find any sign of it.....when it comes to the vegetables,I use no chemicals and next to no digging.

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    1. Thanks Rhoda for some of your stories! It is good to get the experiences of someone at the harder end of the problem where you have a particularly susceptable site - poor drainage, Summer dry and old woodland. Your experiences are very interesting and informative and I admire your philosophical attitude.
      You raise a lot of interesting points particularly the one about not damaging bark by strimming and other activities. I have often thought not digging also helps by not damaging vulnerable roots - perhaps counter intuitive as it also chops up the bootlaces.
      Your mention of it liking plastic mulches reminds of my own story in the post about the plastic pond liner.
      You sound to have an acid soil if enkianthus does well! Although I have argued that popular opinion over-exagerates the dangers of armillaria the published lists of susceptable and resistant plants are quite accurate, perhaps you could be bolder in your choices of new planting material. (not that your successes with japanese maples is not bold!)
      I am sorry you might have had difficulties in getting your comments through. When I make long comments on other sites I do it by typing it on a document and copying and pasting it onto the blog. I can try again that way or even change it if I have said something silly.

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    2. You can also press 'reply' if you want to add something as I do now!
      Having reread your first contribution of course you have an acid soil and do seem bold in your planting. Having an acid soil does not inhibit one from trying none acid lovers.

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  12. Hi Roger, I found your blog very interesting but while I am sure you do have Armillaria in your garden the mushrooms you have photographed are not Armillaria. They look more like Hypholoma, possible Hypholoma sublateritium. Species of Hypholoma often colonise the same log or stump that host Armillaria species.

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  13. Greetings to New Zealand!
    I can see from the authority of your fine blog that you are right. Thanks very much for the correction. I would be grateful to hear if I have any other mycological errors you will alert me!

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    1. At last !! I was going to point out the photos are most definitely not Honey Fungus, but thought I'd better read the comments first to see if anybody else noticed. The grey gills do point to this being Hypholoma lateritium (Brick Tuft) rather than the more common H. fasciculare (Sulphur Tuft) although I am at a loss why it seems to be strangling that herbaceous plant - it is a saprophyte - devouring dead wood.
      There are currently 7 species of Armillaria in the UK, 3 are bio-luminescent, and it is only A. mellea that is truly aggressive and of any concern to the gardener.
      One other point, the scientific name of Fly Agaric is Amanita muscaria (not Amonita) - just calling it 'Amonita' is very confusing as there are between 31 and 41 species listed in the UK (according to which author you read)

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  14. Hi I used to have a lovely cherry tree with a great canopy of green leaves....Now only quater the tree it used to be, no mushrooms growing from or around the base and I keep a trench dug around the tree, but over the last three years it seems to be strugling and I noticed agin some of the leaves have turned brown and are dead, can this be honey fungus or something else? havent noticed bootlaces either. Im a novic gardner and I should say the tree is just over 30 years old and is on the edge of my lawn and I love it, but its making me feel sad!

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  15. By coincidence an old client is calling tomorrow. He had a fine flowering cherry and several months after a spell of extremely wet weather his cherry started to die. It took a year to completely die. Waterlogged soil is just one of many factors that can cause sudden tree death - and often the cause is not obvious because several months or even a year has passed.
    If you cannot find bootlaces I suggest your tree death is something else. Perhaps your trench is doing more harm than good!
    Read my post about sudden shrub death that discusses possible causes of such as your cherry dying.http://www.nodiggardener.co.uk/search?q=shrub+die
    Sorry my reply is delayed.

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    1. Thanks Roger, but its not waterlogged as its on a fine raised lawn site with great drainage. I found around several slugs hiding unded one of the large roots that sits proud of the grass, some of the new spring leaves on either side north and south have just died off and I also notice a piece of my privet hedge dying also but it looks as though its been underwatered as its on a bank site around 40feet from the cherry tree.....had another look for bootlaces but found nothing, will read your article as sugested. Why do you think tne trench is harmful?? It saves tree trunk damage from the strimmer!

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    2. Today I notice a lot of the cherry tree leaves are spoted with a brown colour!

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    3. Often stressed plants succumb to all kinds of afflictions but cherry leaf spot would not kill your tree. Nor the slugs!
      For what its worth I have had an ornamental prunus fade away and die this year and I do not know the cause (but its not armillaria) i have several theories but just shrug my shoulders!
      I am only suspicious of your trench if it is deep. If its just a shallow depression no matter.PS frequent strimming damage can kill trees!

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  16. Thanks Roger yes the trench is just a shallow one so we dont damage the tree with the strimmer....the bark also looks healthy and good.

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  17. Thank you so much for this post! I have a small garden in an community garden area that used to be a bog. Hf made itself known in the years after a flood when the city mistakenly cut off the drainage pipes and record rains. It is everywhere in my garden and I’ve spent half of the summers trying to improve the soil by digging up stumps, roots, improving drainage. Your post plus comments to it are a consolation. I’ll try to look at hf as a learning experience and a planting opportunity.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your experience May. I think many of us have shared unfortunate excessive wet and dry the last couple of years.
      Look on it as an opportunity to have a wet garden. I myself have suffered from the blockage of a very signiificant drain and standing water through Winter. In my case no armillaria but some plants die all the same

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  18. I am enjoying your blog, especially this topic. For 35 years I've had a tiny urban garden around my 85 year old house in the Southeastern USA, but didn't know about root rot fungus until recently. I have what looks like honey fungus growing at the base of cornus mas and large shelf fruiting bodies growing on huge old oak trees. An old oak was removed 8 years ago due to root rot and in it's extended root zone grow mostly woody mushrooms (they are so hard, a saw would have to be used to cut them) and also white puffballs that mature to a black color. I've seen the shoestrings underground, but when I recently dug a hole to plant a shrub about 6 meters from that felled oak, I saw what looked like a tape from inside an 8 track cassette (remember those from the early 1970's?). It was taut from one side of the hole to the other side, impossible to break with a shovel, flat, approximately 6mm wide, black and shiny (when I wiped off the dirt). The hole was deep, and this tape was running 30cm deep underground. I love these forest sized trees, especially when the huge Barred Owls are hooting their monkey-like call. There are a lot of these old oak trees in my large old urban neighborhood. The city must have planted them a hundred years ago. I see the shelf fungus growing on many of them. Every year in my neighborhood, at least one old tree or a huge limb will fall during a storm, usually across a busy street and it takes at least 24 hours to move it out of the street ...closed streets and lots of chain saws in the middle of the night. Most of these old trees are growing between the sidewalk and the street curb, and the city cuts half-moon shapes out of the sidewalks to accommodate the increasing girth of a tree, while the tree's circumference oozes over the curb and into the street. For as long as I've lived in this house, the electric company has been cutting a V shape out of the tops of these street trees to protect their overhead lines from ice storms, and for 15 years they have been boring through the tree roots to install underground cable, but later they tell us they cannot install underground cable because of all the huge trees! I'm amazed these old trees tolerate so much abuse. My cornus mas is in decline at it's top. Most of my plants are in a moderate state of decline, about 30 percent live 20 years or more, and an equal number die within a couple of years of planting ...even plants on the resistant list. I think the only solutions are to keep planting or grow grass.

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    1. I love your description of the bootlaces looking like recording tape. They do.
      You sound pretty philosophical about your gardening travails and I am sure you enjoy observing man and nature coexist enormously
      Great to know someone like you is reading me all that way over the water

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  19. Is it important to remove the host plant, even if it still pleases aesthetically, despite the visual decline and fungus mushrooms? I can't bear the thought of busting up my most powerful winter antidepressant, cornus mas, chaenomeles 'Texas Scarlet' and scilla, which are neighbors and all bloom at the same time. Yellow, red and blue when the entire region is brown. I can't make myself remove the cornus mas. What would you do? It's difficult, but I must move on at some point.

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    1. The only tree in my garden that has suffered with honeyfungus was a very old lilac that had been given the thumbs down by my wife ten years ago. Ever 'last year' it has magnificently flowered.Last month strong wind blew it over. It left me a very strong sapling from a four year old sucker which is already making a fine new tree.
      Unless your tree is the only source of actual local infection leave it alone.

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  20. It's the only plant showing honeyfungus mushrooms, although there is evidence of other types of root rot funguses. The city will eventually force me to remove this cornus mas due to inevitable complaints from neighbors about it's dead branches during the leafy seasons. I'm beginning to incorporate 5mm sized crushed granite, shale and pumice for soil aeration and drainage. I truly appreciate your descriptions of the no digging method which is helping me learn how to stop torturing my red clay soil here in the hot and humid southeastern USA. Since the honeyfungus mushrooms are only on this one plant, then I will remove it ...after one more exhibition of that cheerful winter color.

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  21. In my previous comment, I intended to say slate instead of shale. I would like to know what you think regarding the following:

    When issuing building permits here in the United States, local governments have rules about how much of the property will be hardscaped, in an attempt to address surface water runoff. One solution is creating rain gardens, which slows down the surface water. The plants in the slight depression of the rain garden have more time to absorb nutrients and prevent them from flowing into waterways. If I understand correctly, rain flows into a gravel swale on the high side of the rain garden, and is collected in the rain garden for a short time due to placement of an earthen berm on the low side. This interruption of the flow of surface water is supposedly a good thing for the environment. But I cannot find any information about the combination of root rot contaminated soil and rain gardens. It seems like a bad idea to slow down water drainage in an area where you've lost plants due to root rot. What do you think? Do you use berms to control surface water?

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  22. I thought on first casual reading you were on about drainage on a regional scale and implications of inevitable ecological changes to dominant vegetation.
    In a sense you are, referring to more trendy layout of individual gardens. By creating wetter local zones it is inevitable that plants susceptable to wet conditions will suffer. On the other hand some plants will love it and thrive.
    I fully approve of attempts to reduce rapid run off by such as reducing hard surface areas and strongly agree that retaining extra water avoiding summer drought and reducing pressure on local water removal in periods of heavy rain is a good thing.
    As to 'giving more time to drink nutrients' sounds piffle to me - although just the fact that the plant is not droughted will make them grow better

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  23. Don’t be so sure about your cherry. Ours suddenly dropped dead after flowering fabulously for years. The logs stink and the surgeon says that is honey fungus...

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    1. yes I know cherries can go down to honey fungus.There is a very old cherry near to my infected lilac (which has at last blown over) and it is amazingly healthy.
      On the other hand a friend had a similar mature flowering cherry which was killed as a result of flooding in an exceptionally wet Winter - but there was no sign of honey fungus at all

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  24. Just as bad as Honey Fungus is Silver Leaf Disease (Chrondostereum purpureum). This has spread from the plum trees, to the apple trees, Betula trees and a Weeping Willow tree - now all dead. Books tell you not to prune Prunus species when C. purpureum is sporulating, but I thought it was safe to prune Mallus trees - I can confirm we have now lost 3 apple trees from Silver Leaf disease.

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    1. I have experienced the death of a plum with silver leaf. I know it will attack apple but I have never seen it. I do not think the timing of your apple pruning is relevant to your sad experience Neil.
      I am really surprised it has spread to your birch and willow I suspect your drainage might be very poor - but willow.....

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