Honey fungus
8000wildflowers
Posts: 278
Hi, we just removed a summerhouse and can now see the old neglected hedge behind. It's a mix of laurel and thuja, no idea what type, before my time. There's also a mix of weeds under the hedge of ivy, nettles, plus some self seeded ash and elderberry.
3 of the thuja in a row have died.
I'm suspecting honey fungus but I find it difficult to identify as the white fungus I see at the bottom of the base could have come off an old rotten fence that was adjacent to it, and the bootlaces pictures online just look like tree roots to me. Once you try to compare with what's in your garden you start to imagine every root you see is honey fungus!
The white fungus I can see looks more like the white papery fungus you sometime see on wet wood chip and logs, i.e. good fungus. I peeled back the bark and there's a very small amount of the white fungus but only on the bark under the soil line after I dug down a little. I may have seen bootlaces, or weed roots.
2 pics are enclosed, the close up shows the possible bootlaces, you can see where I've peeled back the brownish cover at the tip to reveal white underneath (they're curling down to the bottom of the pic and up to the top right). I don't think they're ivy roots as those are more yellowish. These storks are a strange brown, almost a dull mauve-brown rather than dark brown. They're about 5mm diameter and flexible/almost circular.
Can anyone help identify if this is honey fungus fungus, and/or bootlaces?
Thanks
Posts
I can't see anything there that looks like HF. But that's not a no. I have HF but the only time I thought I found the bootlaces was nowhere near the HF trees and all is still healthy there.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Thanks nutcutlet.
It's been cutback very hard by the neighbour at some point, and jammed up against a large summerhouse for many years before we arrived, so maybe it was neglect. The laurel looks a bit sad too and has been in the same situation but is coping better.
Here's hoping not HF, I may need to throw another in to give the neighbour privacy. Cheers.