Selfsufficientish.com

Hi, as this is my first posting on this forum, I hope I am posting this in the right area?
We just moved into our new home last May, and had our lawn put in then, we had an landscape company lay the sod , which is doing quite well, except, and there is always an except, right?
The lawn is doing quite well except for these annoying mushrooms, what can we use to get rid of these things?
Any suggestions are appreciated, as long as it's not chemically related, thank you.

What sort of mushroom are you talking about? Maybe you can eat them. Like this one I've got in my hand. [munch munch] Just be sure they're not poi... poi... poi... gack! gack! arrrggghhh!

[thump]

Well I don't know the name of this type of mushroom, but I don't think they are for eating, but then I can't say for sure, all I would like is to get them out of the lawn if that is possible????

Mushrooms live on lots of water and decaying plant matter.

Be careful not to overwater, and try to remove rotten stuff if possible. If they're popping up in a certain location, you might have something you could dig out and eliminate, some particularly nasty old bit of rotten material.

Also, mushrooms don't particularly like nitrogen, while grass loves nitrogen, so find a way to increase the nitrogen in your soil.

And I imagine you should pick mushrooms as soon as you see them so they don't get a chance to keep spreading spores.

But something I just read somewhere:

Mushrooms in Newly Laid Sod. Mushrooms often appear in a new sod lawn during the period of sod establishment. Common species of mushroom include Panaeolus foenisecii, which are small mushrooms with slender stems and brown gills and spores, and cone heads, Conocybe spp., which are small light-colored mushrooms with slender stems and smooth cone-shaped caps. New sod lawns usually require frequent irrigations to become established, creating an ideal environment for the growth of mushrooms. The mushrooms do not harm the lawn and will disappear when irrigation is reduced.

Do you have coneheads on your lawn? If so, remember: they come from France.

Thank you for your reply, Eeksypeeksy. We practically live in a "rainforest" or so it seems at times, we are on the westcoast, near Vancouver, as you have probably heard, it rains alot here.
But, when they laid the sod last year, I did have to water it quite abit, because it was pretty warm then, and if I didn't it would have burned away.
But, when or if it ever stops raining, I will definitely keep it in mind not to water too often any more.
No, there is no particular area that they pop up, it is just all lawn and no rotting things in there.
So, I will keep it in mind, and water as little as is possible, and hopefully the lawn will stand up to that.
Thanks again for your response I really appreciate it, I will have to start "pulling" them out again this year.

Sorry Nancy but pulling them out won't help much as they spread through the soil most of the time. The mushrooms are just like fruit on trees, used for starting colonies elsewhere.

If these continue to bother you you could consider buying a soil-application fungicide (there's a brand called Armillatox over here) but I'd suggest you identify them first because some are edible. We have a small patch of St George's mushroom that comes up in our lawn every May and they're just soooooo tasty that we wish the patch would expand a bit!

A change in thought might be all that's needed though, if you can stop thinking of it as "lawn" (a perfectly maintained monoculture) and start thinking of it as "grass" (a green bit of garden that you can walk on). Much less stress!

Hi Hedgewizard, thanks for your suggestions and comments, I appreciate them.
So, all my work of pulling them out is just a waste of time then, well I guess I can stop that then.

As far as identifying the mushrooms, they have really tiny thin stems very whitish in colour, the tops of them are cone shaped and also very light in colour, but these ones are really very mushy in texture, so I wouldn't think you could do anything with them, when I pull them out they practically fall apart in my fingers.
Then every so often I find an couple of really darker ones in colour almost a copper colour but abit darker, and they are more closer to the ground, the other ones are quite tall on the stems.

Well, I think your suggestion of not thinking of it as a "lawn" is probably the better way to go, I guess I just have to close my eyes for awhile, maybe when we get some dry weather they might start to dry up?

Thank your for your suggestions, have a great weekend.

It's really not possible to ID mushrooms from a description (and difficult enough from a photo) but if you ring a local further education college they might know of someone who could help you there.

Since this is a new lawn, there's probably a lot of free nutrient around which the grass will soak up as it grows, so a lot of fungi will die down with time leaving you with any that are actually naturalised with grassland. You may not have a problem at all! Good luck!

Thank you , Hedgewizard.
I am hoping that will be the case. But, I'm not so sure, guess that is negative thinking, shouldn't do that!!!
But, this whole are used to be a corn field before it was made into a subdivision, and there seems to be alot of brown grass growing through , don't know what that is all about, but like you said, we'll just think of it as something green to walk on, as long as it stays green, lol!!!!!
It is raining again, or should that be still here.
Hope you have some better weather in your area of the world.
Thanks again.

I keep forgetting to ask , who came up with the idea of those pictures from the series, "Good Neighbours"?
We used to love watching that show, we really enjoyed it.
I think it is an excellent idea for your forum.

nancyv. wrote: who came up with the idea of those pictures from the series, "Good Neighbours"?

I think you have to ask Andy and Dave Hamilton about that!

The TV show is called "The Good Life" in the UK!

Hi Millymollymandy, I wonder why they bothered to change the name, that was silly, what was wrong with , "The Good Life"?
We haven't seen any episodes of it for years, they used to show this series here in Canada, well the States I guess, because those are where most of the channels come from, I'd say about 8 years ago or something like that, I know it's an older show, but we really enjoyed watching it.
Have a good weekend, we are still sitting in the rain!!!!!!

Coffee grounds are nitrogen, right? Mybe you could get a bag from starbucks.

Hi STHLMgreen, are you serious or are you joking with me, to tell you the truth, I really didn't know coffee grounds are nitrogen, so I could use my used coffee grinds and spread that on the areas of the lawn???
You will have to guide me here, because i am just new to all this gardening stuff.