Hi - so I bought a ponytail palm about a month ago from a nursery, I didn’t change the soil because it seemed fine and I’ve only watered once since I bought it. I mostly leave most of my plants alone until I know they need water, so today I was very surprised to see these little mushrooms growing in the soil. 😯 Google tells me they’re harmless, but may be due to high humidity and if I have pets (I do) to remove them.. any advice?
I’ve had these! They mean it’s good soil. As for if you should remove because of pets, I don’t know.
5개 좋아요Those look like pot mushrooms. They grow pretty common in nutritious potting mix. However, they are poisonous. If you want to get rid of them, it would be best to scrape off the top layer and sprinkle it with cinnamon to help kill some of the spores. They also die back when the soil dries out. So it may benefit to let the top two inches of soil completely dry before waterings. Hope this helps🙂
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i highly suggest you remove them if you have animals that like to sniff around your plants. or even if you have pets in general. fungus identification is very finicky if you don't know what you're doing and plenty of people die every year by mistaking one mushroom for another. there are too many poisonous mushrooms out there to risk it. this is very unideal for a ponytail palm. all palms are semi-succulents, the soil should never be retaining this much moisture for this long. change to a succulent mix asap, and check for root rot while you're there.
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I would probably switch to a very chunky soil mix, or a cactus soil mix!
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I would send the picture to your local mycological society just so you can know what you’re saving your pets from before/after you scrape the soil.
3개 좋아요The kind of mushrooms that usually grow in plant pots aren't life-threatening to pets or people, but they can cause stomach upset if eaten. If a pet tried it, they'll definitely have a bad day, and might vomit or get diarrhea. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's best to prevent that problem by removing the mushroom. (You don't have to kill the mycellium; just pick the blooms.) The species you have looks like flowerpot parasol, but it might be one I'm not familiar with (flowerpot parasol tends to be one bloom while yours has many. You can post it on Inaturalist to get help with ID)
0개 좋아요And if for any reason you need to kill off the mycellium entirely, any fungicide should do. Keep good airflow and improve soil drainage to help prevent mushroom blooms in the future
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