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GROWING THINGS: If you liked it, you should have put a fairy ring on it

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Q My neighbour has a fairy ring at the borderline between our properties. My concern is that it will keep advancing onto my property. Is there any preventative action I can take? Should I just dig up the last metre and put fresh dirt and new sod down? I lost the battle in the backyard and put down a patio on the lawn and I don’t want the same problem in the front.

A It’s been a year or more since I received a question on fairy ring so it’s definitely time to revisit the issue. This problem is caused by a fungus that, when established, cuts off the supply of water to the roots of the grass through its thick mesh of mycelium fibers in the soil. You need to get water through that thick tangle of mycelium somehow. A garden fork can be used to make holes throughout the ring area. The holes should be 25 cm deep and 10-15 cm apart and will help the water penetrate the earth. Water this area every single day for at least a month.

I’ve had success using a root feeder to control the rings, sticking the root feeder into the middle of the fairy ring and a few feet down and let the water run at a slow trickle for several hours. Move the feeder 30 cm or so into a new location on the ring and repeat the process through the entire ring. Everytime I was watering other things in the yard I would water the ring — I literally drowned the affected area.

It took almost a month to see changes but the ring eventually disappeared. The key to this whole problem is patience and perseverance. If you simply sprinkle the area lightly every second day or so you won’t see any results. You have to be at it every day, even two to three times a day if you can.

The alternative is to dig down and remove the fungus. This is a large undertaking to remove all the mycelium. Sometimes it’s only 15 cm below the surface, other times it can go as deep as one metre. I would highly recommend the overwatering method.

I looked back to see when I last discussed fairy rings and found two emails from 2009 that are relevant today.

The first: About 15 to 20 years ago we had two big fairy rings in our yard. Our district agriculturalist at the time said the only way to get rid of them was to dig them out.

We dug 30 cm back of the ring and 30 cm down. Every time we put the spade in the ground we put it into a big pail of bleach and water. You wouldn’t believe the spongy mass we dug up. We ended up with a huge hole 30 cm deep by about two metres wide by the time we were done with the biggest one, and the second was only slightly smaller. We hauled in new dirt and reseeded the grass. It was a lot of work but so far they haven’t returned. 

The second: I want to tell you about our recent experience with a fairy ring. We did the hole punching and soap thing (a whole bottle of Sunlight) and then put grass seed on all the bare spots, topped with a little peat moss and watered it. As the new grass grew, the mushrooms became less and less (we picked them as soon as they were big enough to get our fingers on). We repeated this about three times over a month and we have no fairy ring — it’s completely gone. You can’t tell that we ever had one.

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