HAVING had a few days away in the caravan recently, we returned to find an eruption on our front lawn!
The dreaded Armillaria has finally popped its head up and produced some amazing clusters of typically honey-coloured toadstools, probably feeding on an old stump of a cherry tree – this gives this devastating disease one of its common names – Honey Fungus.
The other common name is the bootlace fungus because of what is going on underground.
With seven species of the disease in the UK, I cannot identify the particular species, but A. mellea and A. gallica are the most common.
The rhizomorphs, as these bootlaces are more correctly called, are the ‘root system’ of the fungus that spread between the bark and the wood, gradually blocking the sap supply of the plant.
This creates the typical symptoms of the disease, such as early leaf fall, sudden or gradual death of individual branches, cracking bark close to the ground, smaller leaves and sheets of white fungal material, where the bark peels off, that smell distinctly of mushrooms.
There are no chemical controls for this disease and the removal and total destruction of the stump and roots, to remove the food source of the fungus, is the only real way to deal with an infected plant.
Plants with some known resistance include species of taxus, quercus, buxus, carpinus, ginkgo, juglans, laurus, berberis and clematis. Plants with known susceptibility include species of betula, buddleia, ligustrum, magnolia, malus, prunus, syringa and Leyland cypress.
Visit the RHS website (www.rhs.org.uk ) and search through the advisory pages for the advisory leaflets on honey fungus – they give a comprehensive list of susceptible and resistant woody plants to help you choose alternatives if you have lost a tree or shrub in your garden to this unrelenting disease.
