Mushrooms! How can I get rid of mushrooms in a flower bed?

A year ago I had a large silver maple tree removed from my property. The stump was ground out below ground level. I filled in with soil and established a perennial bed. This spring I am being bombarded with clumps of mushrooms which I try to dig out daily for fear they'll choke out the perennials.

Do any of you know if there is something I can apply to the soil to eradicate these invasive mushrooms?

Thanks.

As far as I know, mushrooms don't choke out anything. The roots aren't much and they just go away if left alone. I've never bothered with removing them. Just a fungus that likes heat and moisture.

terryr --

Thanks very much for your reply. I won't worry so much about them, now. I could be causing them to spread more by trying to dig them out!

We get smaller mushrooms that appear when I spread fresh mulch each year. Like terryr said if you leave 'em alone, they don't really hurt anything, and disturbing them can spread the spores. Once the little ones dry, they turn dark and blend into the wood, so I just chalk it up to nature doing "her" thing ;o)

Terry, thanks so much for your input. For once, I'll try letting nature do "her" thing.

Actually mushrooms are a sign of organic matter decay which is good for the soil and for your plants. Don't worry about them and just think of them as another flower in your bed, because that is really what they are - the flowering part of a fungus...

You can buy spores of edible mushrooms so that you can prepare a humus-rich garden and infect it with them on purpose. The idea is that the myceliae help break up the unrotted material and release nutrients for themselves and your vegetables and flowers, which in turn give the fungi some protection. See e.g. the "Garden Giant Mushroom Patch [tm]" on http://fungiperfecti.com/kits/outdoor.html (I've bought from them, they seem okay; never tried that product, can't say how well this works). That does suggest that even the wild inedible mushrooms are probably doing more good than harm.

Hi joepyeweed and gooley!

Thanks for your input. And I thought I had a real problem on my hands. This is very helpful.