Thanks, all of you. nana...Yes, the stems are pipe and the leaves are plastic covered wire. I used GE silicone II for doors and windows to glue the flowers together and a wooden round with a hole in it to the back of the flower. I glued a plastic elbow into the round, then glued the pipe into the elbow. luna...I'll try to remember to get closeups of the mushrooms tomorrow and post them. The frog used to be a faded green. I painted it with a metallic copper spray paint, to my husbands disappointment. He thought it should stay green.

I think you can be very secure that what you are seeing is the manifestation of something beneficial. You can be certain that it arises from a parent soil-borne fungus. I have yet to hear or learn of any phytopathogneic fungus that spreads via mushrooms. The ones I know of all use other methods to spread their spores. There may be one or more, but I've never heard of them. If they exist and were prevalent I think every gardener would be looking for "the mushroom". We aren't. That leads me to believe that any such fungus, if it exists, must be quite rare. I would view those mushrooms as a good sign for your soil. What part of Japan?

I just ordered some plugs (to put in logs) from Fungi Perfecti. They have a website that has lots of information to read. They do have materials to put into a garden bed like you're describing, and as I recall, there are lots of varities (including lots I'd never heard of) you can get that way. I'm not sure how it works to have different varities in the same bed. At Fungi Perfecti, they do sell a book (though it's cheaper at Amazon) on growing mushrooms. I looked into it because although I love gardening, a huge chunk of my acre property is woods. I can't enlarge my veggie garden, and we love mushrooms. So why not grow some? With the woods, the logs are no problem. Actually, the power company just trimmed out front this spring, so I have all kinds of logs to choose from. I'm hoping it works.

Xcoyotex, There are many different mushrooms that you can grow, both indoors and outside in a garden. Many mushrooms grow well on decomposing material such as compost, straw, woodchips etc ... but some have very specific types of growing medium to be successful. I would suggest checking out ( Fungi Perfecti's ) website ( there are others also but FP is the most detailed I have found ) and you can see many varieties and info on growing requirements. FYI, if you have not grown mushrooms before it may take a year or more to get the soil conditions suitable to grow them outdoors. HTH