Fungus in bag of wood chippings

jess_norwood

Hi, I've had a bag of B&Q bark chippings sitting unopened in the garden for about a year. Having just given my borders a bit of an autumn tidy-up, and thought I might throw the bark on as a nice warm mulch for the winter.

I opened the bag up, and wasn't particularly surprised to find that it has started to rot down and there's some fungus growing on the bark. There's a fair bit of white papery mold on the surface, and a few mushroom type things (which look a bit rude if you have that kind of mind). It smells vaguely mushroomy like a forest floor - not unpleasant. You can see a photo at twitpic.com/7dihnt (sorry, I'm not allowed to post links)

I'm a bit worried about putting it on my garden in case it's something nasty like honey fungus. It doesn't seem to match the shape of the honey fungus pics I've found on Google, but the colour and hairy stems look suspicious. Can anyone help identify it?

Thanks,
Jess

Jnelhams

Difficult to tell from the picture, as it's obviously distorted in growth.
I would say use it on your herbaceous border or veg plot, no where that you have shrubs, roses or trees just to be on the safe side.

Beetlemama

I've seen this post before on here somewhere, try a search and see what they were told, exactly the same problem I reckon.

jess_norwood

I did a search before I posted and the only discussion I found was similar but not quite the same. Could this be what you'd seen before Beetlemama? forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2392675

Jnelhams - reckon you're right. Short of a positive identification of the fungus it's probably not worth the risk on shrubs etc. Unfortunately all my borders are mixed I so might need to chuck it.

Thanks both,
Jess