Fairy Ring
Stinkhorn Fungus with Fly
Chinch Bugs
Horticulture Hotline 08/17/2025
By Bill Lamson-Scribner
Hopefully, you have put out (or getting ready to put out) your preemergent product for winter weeds in your beds and on your turf. On your home turf, you should include a nitrogen fertilizer. Many lawns are “washed out” looking after all the rain and the long hot summer, and are ready for some nutrients. I’m a little “washed out” myself. Potash, iron and other minor nutrient products can (and should) be used into the fall. A soil test will help you with any rates to apply.
Some 17-00-09 (slow release and loaded with minors) or 08-02-04 (organic) would be great for your trees and shrubs this time of year. Again, a soil test will provide the best information. Fall fertilizer, football, and unfortunately moles and mosquitoes go together this time of year!
Mushrooms have been popping up everywhere in the Lowcountry! The weather has been perfect for them (rain). Think of mushrooms as a beautiful flower of a fungus that is underground decomposing organic matter – old tree stump or roots, mulch or compost you have added, or any other organics in the soil. The mushroom has the spores of the fungus like a flower often develops the seeds for plants. Spores are the way fungus propagates (spreads) itself like seeds propagate plants.
The way I manage mushrooms is with a plastic bag like picking up dog poop. Put a bag on your hand, lift up the mushroom pull the plastic bag over the mushroom and try not to drop too many spores. It is best to do this early in the morning before the spores fully mature and before the gills of the mushrooms open to release the spores. Terry Johnson was on “The Garden Clinic” with me yesterday and he prefers to hit the mushrooms with a nine iron – spreading the mushrooms! Obviously, you do not want to randomly eat anything in you landscape – plants or mushrooms.
Stinkhorn fungi (devil’s backbone) smelling up new mulch beds all over the Lowcountry. The conditions have been perfect for the growth of this fungus with all this rain. This fungus has an awful nasty odor that smells like rotten flesh.
Some plants in nature attract insects with sweet smelling nectar to spread pollen to other plants. This fungus; however, exudes a slime over part of its fruiting body (the mushroom) attracting flies that like rotten flesh or feces. The flies then spread the fungus because spores attach to their bodies. Nice! You have mushroom that exudes a smell like rotten flesh and feces to attract flies. I guess this is the opposite approach of a gardenia.
The way I control stinkhorn is the same way as any mushroom – dog poop bag. The orange fruiting body is attached to hyphae that are underneath the ground decomposing organic matter. In nature, many fungi are good for your soil; however, this can be an unwelcome guest in your home. Fungi, in general, tend to like acidic soil as do most plants, so I wouldn’t try to control them by adjusting the pH. Hopefully, the environmental conditions that cause them to pop up all over the place will go away soon.
There is something that looks like an egg that the mushroom pops out of that some people (mainly in Asia) consider a delicacy. No thank you, I’m not interested in something that smells like rotten flesh or feces.
Fairy Ring is another situation that mushrooms are associated with that can be undesirable. Mushrooms make almost a perfect circle. I will have to address this in a future article as I’m out of column inches (newspaper speak).
With fall arriving, look for mole crickets tunneling near the surface. Mole crickets do a lot of damage in the fall that often goes undetected, leaving big dead areas in the spring. Fire ants are very active with all the rain. Fleas are biting. Large Patch fungus is very active. Mosquitoes, grass and tree damaging worms, chinch bugs, gray leaf spot and rats are abundant. Pots are being purchased for winter color.
Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.
Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum’s Landscape and Pest Control Supply (follow us on Facebook). Possum’s has three locations 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600), or 606 Dupont Rd, in Charleston (766-1511). Bring your questions to a Possum’s location, or visit us at possumsupply.com. You can also call in your questions to “The Garden Clinic”, Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM, or listen to the replay of Saturday’s show, Sundays from 11:00 to noon on 1250 WTMA (The Big Talker). The Horticulture Hotline is available 24 / 7 at possumsupply.com.
