[Bonanza]

[QUOTE=coffeebean;958631]Our home in NJ has Artillery Fungus in the front flower bed. It is awful stuff, shooting spores onto the house and windows up to 20 feet and the stuff turns hard and sticks like glue. Only way to remove all these tiny black spots is to scrape each one individually and make sure the spore does not get on the ground. It will start the cycle all over again. The fungus feeds on decomposing wood mulch and sprouts in a moist environment between 50 and 70 degrees. I'm in the process of removing all the mulch then I plan to get to work to rid our vinyl siding of the black spore spots.

All the articles I've been reading about this fungus say that a large bark mulch is best to prevent the emergence of this pesty fungus. Annual turning of the mulch and topping off with about an inch of mulch will prevent the Artillery Fungus from sprouting.

The reason why I'm telling you my tale of woe is we have a home in The Villages and two seasons ago we had the same type of mulch added to all the flower beds. It is a black wood shredded mulch. I do plan to have all this mulch removed as I don't want this same problem to develop. Just wondering if any of you have heard of Artillery Fungus and has there been a problem with this fungus in The Villages. QUOTE]

I've been trying to find something on this artillery fungus that would relate to central Florida. All I've been able to find about it has been in the northeastern states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, etc.

While I realize this has been a problem up north for many years, as a Florida Master Gardner I've never heard about it and was never taught anything about it when I took the Master Gardner course.

Do you have any information that would relate to this part of Florida?