Why Are Mushrooms Growing in My Yard? Six Reasons and Fixes

Mushrooms are fruiting bodies of various fungi, but not all fungi produce the heads you may see as mushroom caps. Having mushrooms in your yard indicates that your soil has the perfect conditions for the unseen mycelium to thrive, come to the surface, and spread.

For the most part, mushrooms are beneficial. Without fungal activity to break down organic matter, the soil becomes deficient in what plants need to grow. Read on to find out why there may be mushrooms growing in your yard and how to properly control them.

Reasons Why Mushrooms are Growing in Your Yard

Your Yard's Soil Is Happy and Healthy

If mushrooms grow above the soil, that hints at the abundance of fungal life you do not see under your soil. The mushroom caps and stems we are used to seeing are the "fruit" of the long stringy body of the entire organism that feeds off of decaying organic material. For these fruiting bodies to appear, your soil has to be full of rich organics that the mycelia will work to decompose.

Too Much Decaying Matter

You might have too much of a good thing if mushrooms consume your yard. The same decaying matter might allow them to overpopulate by providing too much nourishment, throwing off the balance of the ecosystem. This can be caused by leaving grass clippings, over-mulching, and over-fertilizing with compost or manure. Be sure to pick up and compost grass clippings or use a mulching mower.

Lawn Is Too Damp or Receives Too Much Water

Fungi love moisture. If your lawn does not receive adequate drainage and collects water in some areas, it may be the perfect place for mushrooms to erupt, especially if it's combined with other conditions. Your drainage might be perfect, but you may also be the culprit. Sometimes when looking for the perfect green lawn, people go a little heavy with the watering. If this happens, you can cause mushrooms to pop up because of the extra moisture.

Increase in Humidity and Temperatures

Depending on the region you live in, you may face higher humidity and temperature levels. This will spur outbreaks of mushrooms in lawns throughout the hot summer months in places that might never have had them. The ideal conditions for fungal growth are damp and warm areas with plenty of organic matter.

Mushroom Removal Before Mowing

Mushrooms reproduce by releasing spores. The complex growth cycle involves spreading spores that are kept under the caps of the mushrooms. If you try to remove mushrooms by cutting them, you will inadvertently spread the spores rather than doing what you initially tried to achieve. You can naturally remove them easily with just a bit of effort.

Yard Receives Too Much Shade

While mushrooms can grow fine in the sunlight, they grow much better in the dark or semi-dark. If you have shady conditions in your yard and all the other conditions are right, there is a good chance you may end up with mushrooms growing in your lawn.

Why You Want Mushrooms on Your Lawn

If you have mushrooms in your yard, leaving them be would not be a bad idea. Fungi are known as decomposers, which means they help break down dead organic matter and turn it into bioavailable compounds for other organisms to use for nourishment. This organic matter can be as simple as a cut blade of grass or as complex as a dead beetle or rotting tree stump. Mushrooms will decompose all of the waste in your yard and create or continue to keep your soil rich and healthy as long as the fungal body called mycelium exists in the soil.

However, there are some mushrooms that you will want to remove immediately if you see them, and knowing what they look like if you have pets or children is recommended.

Warning

Look out for these fungi:

• Aminita bisporigia is commonly known as the death angel.

• Chlorophyllum molydbites are commonly known as the false parasol.

• Inocybe praetervisa is commonly known as the Western destroying angel.

How to Control Mushrooms in Your Lawn

If you decide the mushrooms in your yard are not appealing to you or if they are a risk to your children or pets and need to be removed, it is important to remove them correctly. You may want to either mow over them or spray fungicide across the entire lawn to eliminate your issue, however, both methods are terrible mistakes.

Mowing the mushrooms will do nothing but disperse millions, if not billions, of spores across your lawn, broadcasting them as if you were sowing grass seed, setting up your lawn to be covered with ever more mushrooms. Although the fungicide method will get rid of your mushroom issue, it will also hurt your soil, killing the beneficial fungi that your soil uses to break down organic matter to release nutrients in the soil.

To effectively remove the mushrooms from your yard and keep your soil as healthy as possible, you must remove them individually. It might seem like a chore, but the benefit is twofold. You will not end up with more mushrooms or disturb the delicate micro-ecosystems that exist out of sight under the soil that the grass and plants rely on.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it a bad sign if mushrooms grow in your yard?

No, more often than not, it is actually a good sign that you have healthy, organically rich soil.

What causes mushrooms to suddenly appear in your yard?

There are many reasons why mushrooms can quickly appear. The most common cause is new compost or mulch that hasn't been heat treated has been introduced into a yard, along with perfect conditions for the fungus to grow. You can have a burst of fungal growth after a few cloudy days with warm, humid weather and some added moisture.

Should you get rid of mushrooms growing in your lawn?

That is entirely up to you. If you suspect they are poisonous and you have pets and children, then it is advisable to remove them as suggested above.

Read Next: What Is Mushroom Compost and Why Use It

Read the original article on The Spruce.