Garden Experiments
For the love of gardening and wildlife habitat
Fungi are a part of our ecosystem. They help decompose things and form relationships with trees and plants to help them grow and survive, but they can also cause diseases. Learn about some of the fungi you find in your garden and backyard.
If you step outside one day to find a powerful stink in your freshly-laid mulch or new plants and you don't have a dog, a stinkhorn mushroom might be to blame. This unobtrusive fungi can pop up in wood chips, grass, or soil and they produce a very strong odor. Just like their name implies, stinkhorns produce a stink not unlike fresh …
Continue Reading about What is that Smell? Stinkhorn Mushrooms in the Garden
Have you ever seen a yellow fungus growing from the soil of one of your potted plants? You might be surprised to know that these yellow mushrooms aren’t uncommon. They won’t hurt your plant and they aren’t harmful to you. They’re just a small part of the ecosystem doing their job in a pot of soil that happens to be in your house (or in my case, in …
Continue Reading about Yellow fungus in potting soil – the yellow houseplant mushroom
In the fall and winter, I like to go lichen-hunting. The trees have lost their leaves and there isn’t much undergrowth, so it’s a lot easier to spot these frilly, hairy, fuzzy, and crusty organisms. There are so many shapes, textures, and colors of lichens to look at, it can take me hours to get down a trail. I once had a bicyclist whizz past …
So you are walking around your yard one day and see a spot of bright yellow in your mulch. What in the world is that? It's a slime mold! This mold is Fuligo septica the vomit slime mold and it shows up in warm, humid conditions and spreads across the top of the material - usually wood mulch. It starts out rather beautiful (at least this one …
Continue Reading about Yellow Slime Mold – The Dog Vomit Fungus
