Cultivating fungi

[Jason Green]

Evening all!!

As you may or may not know, I'm converting a fairly empty, shaded section of ground in the garden into an area to hopefully attract wildlife. Anyway, one habitat I'm hoping to include is wood bark for fungi.

I'm therefore wondering if a section of wood bark, or indeed any other base material or something in addition would be OK or if I would need to do anything else to encourage some fungi to grow there?

Would being in the shade be OK?

Thanks for reading!

Take care,

Jason

[mollisia]

Hallo Jason,

most of the wood inhabiting fungi live inside the wood and not on the bark. So bark only will not be likely to show you some fungi. You better choose a trunc or a log, with or without bark. Whether you will see some fungi there or not will be surprise, also which species. If you take the log from forest, you can be certain that it contains already fungi. But if they produce fruitbodies, and if that are fruitbodies which you hope to see in your garden - who knows?

Shady is of course o.k., better than in the sun. The damper the better.

best regards,
Andreas

[Hedge Witch]

Hi Jason,
Your thread has reminded me that when I collected wood for my wood pile it came with some lovely Xylaria hypoxylon. I'm looking forward to next autumn to see if it forms fruiting bodies again. Fungi are interesting enough - pet fungi are even better

[ron1863]

I know that if you wanted a quick result then you can buy logs pre-impregnated with spores but I don't know where from

[Jason Green]

Great posts, thanks all! I'll get some wood bark (in the minority as a base layer) then mostly use logs then. I'm pretty new to fungi but hoping to learn the basics.

Will keep you updated!

[ron1863]

Jason, you could always take a walk in your woods and gather some logs that have fungi growing on them.

[Jason Green]

Hmmm... may just do that, Ron. Thanks

[goosey]

Hi Jason, I started a small log pile about 3 years ago for the benefit of insects. I collected small logs when I was out and about and put them in a shady area. I stuck couple of logs into the ground vertically (I was advised to do this but can't remember why ) the rest were just piled horizontally. After a few months not only was it alive with insects but I had my first fungi -Mycena arcangeliana, this has returned every year. I have also had Mycena haematopus, a Galerina Sp and some curtain crust and orange slime mould. I presume all the spores were on/in the wood when I brought them home.
It was easy - I did nothing, it just grew .

[cybershot]

Old railway sleepers can be a source of interesting species too - as shown by this Gloeophyllum sepiarium - Conifer Mazegill which appeared in my garden last year



Good luck and lots of patience may even see you producing morels on woodchip.

David

[Jason Green]

Great, thanks for the help! I'll keep you posted...