I don't worry about mushrooms - when conditions are right they will show and when conditions change they disappear. I'm guessing moisture/humidity and heat were right and some organic matter is in the soil to grow from.

Paul

what was there before you ever planted hosta??

kill any trees in the area recently/???

w/o a pic its hard to tell you much..

other than shrooms are usually pretty innocuous ... they are using up some material in the soil [like dead tree roots or mulch].. and PROBABLY have nothing to do with the hosta themselves .... but again.. w/o a pic.. this is all speculation ...

shrooms.. should be considered an EXTRA.. and FREE show of mother nature.. 99.9% of the time ..

ken

Thanks Paul!
Yes Ken, actually I was working on chopping down another pesky buckthorn/oakish/nightshade/weed mess when I gave up and started working on the hosta bed. It is taking forever.

The hosta are in an area that had 30 or 40 year old overgrown shrubs that were ripped out by the previous owner. I managed to kill one small buckthorn nearby last year, so the roots from that and the shrubs could be rotting finally, but if that were the case, I would expect 'shrooms to grow from them, not only at the base of the hosta.

Ohh.. the fertilizer company I fired over did it last month and basically killed all the grass that was in front of the bed, but the row closest to the grass is fine except for the shrooms at the base. Weird. Pix tomorrow. Thanks!

I don't want to lose them because they are some of the dozen or three I moved from my mother's hosta garden after she died.

I've heard that mushrooms are a sign of decaying wood. So, I think Ken was spot on to ask if you'd killed any trees lately.

"The soil is dry as heck in almost the entire bed"

Nope, mushrooms not the trouble. Dry soil, no mulch, west side of garage so hot afternoon sun, and if an eave causes a rain shadow that could all add up to yellowing.

tj

Melissa and Ken are correct. Mushrooms are a sign of decaying wood in the soil. Leave them as they are beneficial to your Hosta. They create mycorrhizae in the soil and help the plant access nutrients.

Steve

Pix tomorrow for your consideration. :)

I may just break down and move them all to the north side of the house after all my tree killing is finished. The small bed that is there is doing well. It may be just too hot in that spot. The blues had lost their blue before they started yellowing, and I don't water from above to avoid burning the leaves.

Thanks for the info! I'm fairly sure the mushrooms were from a very unusual case of massive over watering by a friend while I was gone, followed by several days of incredible heat and humidity. My hypothesis is that all the water pooled under the leaves creating a tiny micro-environment in which the organic matter from the old shrub roots could decay and the shrooms could grow like mad!
When I gave them slow water and didn't let it pool, followed by two days of no watering, the shrooms died off.

Here is a picture of the area. I'm almost willing to leave them for this year and just water and pray because the weather has been so crazy dry and hot. I don't know that anything would survive if I tried to move it?? Tomorrow will have heat index officially of 105, but it tends to be 5 degrees higher in my neighborhood than they predict.
Front row is year three, back row is half way through year two and admittedly, they were all just tossed in before they kicked the bucket.

The only kids about won't eat anything without an organic Whole Foods label and want to double check that it was washed really really well..LOL so no worries about yard munching. And I will take no for raising anyone - particularly those foolish enough to munch on Royal Oak mushrooms! ;0)

Oopsie. Here is the picture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48139520@N00/7587727914/in/photostream

Here is a link that might be useful: west