Just as you thought you were getting somewhere with your lawncare journey BOOM, overnight loads of mushrooms started appearing in your lawn.
Some people might view this as a good sign of nature in the lawn whereas others it might drive them crazy for all the effort that you’ve put in to make a green and beautiful
Lawn mushrooms can really spoil the visual appearance of the lawn and maybe even cause some concerns for people with kids and dogs.
Why are there Mushrooms in My Lawn?
Mushrooms are part of an ecosystem of fungi and that fungi grows above the lawn which is what you can see but it also grows a network below the lawn which is almost interconnected.
The Mushrooms you see are almost the fruits of the fungi and they’re designed to produce more mushrooms, now this little fact is one reason why you might want to avoid taking the mower over the top of the mushrooms but i’ll come to that in the next part.
Some mushrooms can be dangerous so wear gloves and if in doubt seek professional advice – follow at your own risk
Are Mushrooms in the Lawn Good or Bad?
Some people believe that having mushrooms in the lawn can be a sign of bad health but actually, these mushrooms require organic matter to grow and generally having organic matter within the soil is a positive thing for grass but it’s also a positive thing for mushrooms!
This organic matter could come from a variety of sources such as decaying grass clippings and some soil or compost that’s been put down and i have seen in one or two cases buried logs and twigs underneath the soil surface that are just decaying over time.
How Quick to Mushrooms Grow?
These fungi can produce at rapid rates. One one night it may be a completely clear lawn and then the next day you wake up and it’s absolutely full of mushrooms.
On my lawn i’ve had two main types of mushrooms, the first are these little brown cap ones which are smaller in size and i’ve also got the white mushrooms which are a little bit taller and grow a little bit above the grass surface
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How to get Rid of Mushrooms in the Lawn?
Typically i’ll always put some gloves on for this type of job, I use a small small bucket and just go and pick the mushrooms out of the ground trying to remove as much of the stem as i can and throw them in the bucket.
That way i’m going to try and minimize the amount of spores that will spread and hopefully clear things up in the coming days / weeks.
Well i previously mentioned in the past that it’s quite tempting to just run the mower over and pick them all up but that can be a bad idea now running the mower over the mushrooms can help spread the spores both inside the machine itself and across the surface of the grass.
By spreading the spores we’re probably going to produce more mushrooms so if i can’t run the mower over it what other options have i got available for my area?
Mushrooms in Shaded Areas
If you’ve got particularly shady areas you can also consider trying to open some light onto the lawn, that will also be a problem for grass growth as well so we can get 2 in 1 benefits here.
If you’ve got some overhanging branches maybe consider cutting those back which is going to improve the airflow and also the sunlight onto the lawn surface
Can I Use a Chemical Treatments for Mushrooms?
In terms of treatment there aren’t really any chemical treatments available in the UK to treat these type of mushrooms.
There may well be other treatments in other parts of the world so if you’re familiar with the treatment for where you live please leave me a comment down in the description below for your methods
Another method to treat the mushrooms is around improving airflow so this could be a good time to aerate the lawn and even scarify it to remove any of dead matter that’s sitting within that soil surface and help open up the canopy and increase the airflow.
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