I have white, ash-like lumps in one area of a bed with a history of honey fungus. What is it, please

Posts

• punkdoc Posts: 15,039

  11 January

  Comments like that are really not helpful. Yes, fungi are essential for life, but HF kills many plants and can decimate some gardens.

  How can you lie there and think of England
  When you don't even know who's in the team
  
  S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border

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• Simone_in_Wiltshire Posts: 1,073

  11 January edited 11 January

  I understood, punkdoc, that others agreed it’s no HF what Claire has got. 

  I personally also think it’s just the ordinary mould that we all have in damp conditions where wood particles are present. 

  I ♥ my garden.

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• StephenSouthwest Posts: 635

  18 January

  I tend to boil it, then fry it...
  

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• GardenerSuze Posts: 5,692

  19 January

  Yuk!

  I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.

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• Liriodendron Posts: 8,328

  19 January

  @GardenerSuze - the mushroom smell from roots & stems infected with honey fungus is extremely strong, unlike any other fungus I've smelled.  (Including edible mushrooms!)  When we had a poorly rowan blown down in a storm a few years ago, I sent photos to the RHS and they identified honey fungus.  I've never seen the "bootlaces", in spite of examining the base of the tree and the bits of root I dug up.  As you have discovered, the fruiting bodies don't always appear - but the white mycelium layer under the bark near the ground, smelling strongly of mushrooms, is a good indication that's the culprit, as @Topbird says.  I can guarantee that once you've smelled it, you won't forget it...

  Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.

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• Topbird Posts: 8,355

  19 January

  I agree @Liriodendron. We had a very mature copper beech felled some years ago and the upper roots and trunk were ground out as best the tree company could at the time. A few years later we had some more work done which meant that the ground there had to be excavated deeper and deeper roots removed.
  
  All I can say is - it was a stench. A really, really strong smell detectable 25m away. Admittedly this was a huge specimen, but the strength of the smell was overpowering. On much smaller shrubs the smell is nowhere near as strong - but it is definitely there.

  Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  

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• Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494

  19 January

  That's very interesting @Liriodendron and @Topbird and something to remember when CF is suspected. Thanks for posting.

  North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone

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• GardenerSuze Posts: 5,692

  19 January

  @Lizzie27 Exactly what I was thinking. I have smelt a rotting shrub but I wouldn't descRibe it as that powerful, very interesting.

  I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.

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