Post Honey Fungus

The Chaffeur

I have read up about honey fungus as my next door neighbours garden and then mine was devastated by this fungus. Mine has now been dead for for a year except for 3ft of private which finally died this spring.

I have  removed everything in the garden now (just) and don't really want to hard pave or lay grass and wonder if I really enriched the soil with farmyard compost and dug it in then I would have a chance of planting resistant or semi resistant plants. At 79 yrs I want to enjoy the garden now and not in 10 years time!

Dovefromabove

I would get on with replanting right away ... I know several lovely gardens which have honey fungus in them ... there are lots of lovely plants which don't seem to be affected. 

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/pdfs/honey-fungus-host-list.pdf 

Last edited: 19 August 2017 10:09:08

BobTheGardener

The good news is that Honey fungus cannot survive without a 'home base' such as a dead stump or an infected host plant, so you have a good chance of being able to grow things again if you have removed everything.  I have HF and can tell you that adding lots of well rotted manure together with soil cultivation really does help and I am now growing several susceptible plants in a previously affected area including a pear tree, Deutzia, Wisteria and several clematis, which have all now been there for over 7 years.

However, as there is a chance of rhizomorphs coming in from next door I would start with resistant or immune plants as Dove suggested.  Here's another link which has lots of info. (it's a pdf from the Guernsey government site):

https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=4797&p=0

Last edited: 19 August 2017 11:29:55

Buttercupdays

I had to clear a border of shrubs in  2014 after I found rampant HF. I dug out everything I could and replanted straight away with perennials, as there were a few roots I had not been able to reach.

It is the best thing that could have happened. The shrubs were nice, but could make it feel a bit gloomy and claustrophobic at times and weren't much to look at in winter. I am getting so much pleasure from my new border, with ever changing colours and effects. I keep juggling plants around and planning new combinations. It is even good to see in winter when all is tidy and bare, though we don't see it from the house as it is down a bank.

 I took cuttings from my favourite shrubs and have young ones of them, but  others were really not that special but I find it hard to be ruthless!.HF meant I had to be and the garden is better for it.

I have a couple of roses and a dwarf Philadelphus on a higher bit of the bank and those are still doing fine and the stump of one Deutzia, which I dumped on the edge of our boggy wilderness beyond the bonfire site, has amazingly revived and flowered beautifully this summer.  So it seems that the HF is not as bad as it might have been . I have lost several other things to it over the 30 odd years we have been here but it has not made gardening impossible. It is just another consideration to add to the elevation, wind, cold, heavy snow and waterlogging that make growing things here such a challenge.

The Chaffeur

Thanks for the encouraging comments, perhaps it is worth taking a chance. As said, gardening is a risk anyway, some things work and others don't. It would be nice to have a gorgeous perennial border as the back garden has a lot of trees and so is very shady - but lot's of wild life including red squirrels nesting.