Usually mushrooms grow in a helter-skelter fashion on your lawn, but there is a particular type which come up in a ring or circle pattern. Each year these rings or circles expand in diameter as the mushroom plant grows through the soil. These are called fairy ring mushrooms.

Just inside this ring of mushrooms the grass will be yellow or nearly dead. The fairy ring mushrooms extract most of the nutrients from the soil as well as binding up the soil making it very difficult for moisture to penetrate.

Fairy rings are unsightly but very difficult to control. The more effective control measures are so costly that most individuals prefer to live with the problem. If you decide to live with the problem, there are several things you can do to help the grass compete with fairy rings. Fertilize the grass in the infected areas several times a year with nitrogen. This replenishes the nutrient supply robbed by the mushrooms. Lack of nitrogen causes the grass to yellow. Using a `root feeder attachment on garden hose, punch holes a foot apart in the yellowing or dying area and pump lots of water into the ground to a depth of 10-24 inches. This is necessary because the mushroom growth causes the soil to become impervious to water. Watering with a sprinkler does very little good for the grass in fairy ring infected areas.

This page was last updated May 2003

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