Kay wrote in
:

In article . 24,
Victoria Clare writes
"Amber Ormerod" wrote in
:

I read you can buy mushroom plugs and grow mushrooms (to eat) and it
slowly gets rid of the stump. I am not sure stump killers actually
rot it away and its basty stuff (you have to bag it up to stop it
running away) Some tree companies do stump grinding. (I left mine
for the beetles to live in)


I bought some mushroom plugs for one of my stumps - they come with
strict instructions that they must be used on freshly cut wood - you
can't just bung them on any old stump.

I don't see the necessity for 'cut'. These are wild fungi we're
talking about! But it may be that they need newly-dead wood. Or not
quite dead wood.

Well that was my theory. The instructions asked for a pile of new-cut,
healthy logs that were cut not more than 6 weeks: I didn't have that but I
did have a stump only 3 weeks past chopping down instead.

I suppose it is possible that my innoculation failed because the tree was
still on its roots - it may not have known it was dead yet.

I do have a suspicion though that the spores you buy may just not be fresh
enough. Mine were from a specialist supplier, but I guess they can't
really control what happens to them in the post: maybe they got stuck next
to a heater or something.


Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--