Fairy rings will appear as large circles in our lawns, most often we will see only a bright green ring which is outlining this circle, and sometimes this outer ring will contain mushrooms too, making for a what appears to be a lovely circle of mushrooms created by nature.
What is really happening is a fungus has infected our lawns in a single spot. As this fungus continued to spread outwards it is actually leaching nutrients as it actively spreads, and it is these extra nutrients which is causing the bring green ring to appear where the fungus is most active. It is this reason also why the active fungus on the outer ring sometimes also grows mushrooms.
Oftentimes the inner circle of an area of turf affected by Fairy Ring may look off-colour or in worst cases even dying off somewhat. This is not always the case though, and usually there won’t be much physical difference of the inner turf from the outer turf. The discolouration occurs due to the older web of fungal mycelium threads that were created earlier in time of the infestation, and as the circle continued to enlarge it left behind soil which was fused together with this dense web of threads, and so water can find it difficult to penetrate fully into the soil in these areas.
The circle denoting the presence of Fairy Ring will usually be about half a metre in diameter before it really becomes noticeable that we have a problem and that the problem is indeed Fairy Ring.
It is not recommended to eat any mushrooms created by Fairy Ring, as many mushroom types are poisonous and Fairy Rings can be created by up to 60 different fungus species which can produce mushrooms, and without us being mushroom experts it might be a hit and miss scenario as to what we are actually consuming. It would be best to pick the mushrooms and throw them into the bin, rather than to mow over them and thus spread the fungus any further.
Curing Fairy Ring In Lawns
The theory goes that Fairy Ring will just keep expanding forever until it runs out of adequate soil environment to consume, and this can be true with some Fairy Rings being up to a kilometre across.
However I’ve seen Fairy Ring appear in my own local oval, and watched as it spread over a year, then develop mushrooms, and then turn to an outer glow of a ring only, and then just disappear all on its own over about less than 3 years in total.
So what can we do to tackle Fairy Ring in the home lawn.
Firstly it’s not that big of a deal, so no need to panic at all.
Let’s approach the problem across many different fronts at once, again, just like we treat many other turf problems. We obviously don’t need to do every single thing listed below to combat Fairy Ring, but these are instead many options available to us for our use if any of them may be suitable in our own requirements.
Fertiliser is the number one go to first port of call whenever we have any type of lawn issues, we want to get the lawn active, healthy and growing, so it can best fight off or outcompete any lawn problems all on it’s own. So implementing a good lawn fertilising program with a quality lawn fertiliser, starting immediately is our best beginning.
Picking any mushrooms as they appear, and then binning them, will also help.
Removing any excess shade to a lawn will help, such as pruning bushes.
Aerating the lawn soil can also be of aid, this can be done with a lawn coring machine, or we could even get a garden fork into the lawn soil, and then going across the lawn we dig in the fork and pull back on it to really aerate and disturb the soil as much as possible.
Ensuring we have a good watering practice in place can help, watering in the mornings, watering less often and more deeply, We may also look to see if we may perhaps be overwatering our lawns too.
Vertimowing the lawn can help by cutting back a lot of the thatch layer of a heavily thatched lawn.
Wetting agents could also be applied to the turf to allow more free flowing of water through the soil profile, so less water may be accumulating near the surface of the lawn soil.
The Ultimate Solution
If the Fairy Ring is still small enough, we can go to some extreme measures to remove the problem entirely, but it is drastic and highly unnecessary. And we would do this only with very small Fairy Rings.
Such a solution would involve digging the outer circle out from the Fairy Ring where the ring is most actively growing, as seen by the bright green leaf foliage. We would then dig down to 30 or 40 centimetres into the soil, removing both lawn and soil and throwing it away. We would then fill in the hole with new soil.
Drastic, yes. Unnecessary, yes. Fairy Ring is not that big a deal to require so much effort.
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