The culprit of the dark pinpoint on your sidetrack could be hiding in your mulch .
mulch around your plants help soil hold onto moisture , keeps the weeds down , and looks respectable . But with sure types of forest - based mulch , you might be providing a habitation to shotgun fungus , too .
This fungus like to experience in damp , decay wood , such as decomposingshredded barque mulch . You ’d in all likelihood never find it except as its name inculpate , shotgun fungus can forcefully shoot out spore . If your theater is in the way of the spray , you ’ll see the event : flyspeck black dots you ca n’t wash off with a hose . The expert news is , the mulch fungus is n’t toxic to you or your pets . But its passing sticky spore are difficult to remove without damaging the wall of your house or any other launch the spore have landed on . The best thing you could do is to nullify it in the first place with these crown .
Credit: Doug Hetherington
What Is Shotgun Fungus?
It ’s hard to see shotgun fungus itself , because it ’s only two millimeter panoptic . Also known as artillery unit or cannonball fungus ( Sphaerobolus ) , it employ internal water pressure to forcefully fire its spore ( similar to seeds ) up to 20 feet away . The fungus sets its sights on bright area so that mean it will aim for any pale surface that reflect light , such as thesiding on your house .
What Causes Shotgun Fungus?
Because it demand moisture to rise , shotgun fungus mostly shoots its spore during nerveless , rainy spring and declination season , especially in suspicious areas , and you ’re most likely to discover it on the darker , north side of your menage . Artillery fungus stops progress to spore when the temperature is over 78 ° degree Fahrenheit , so you ’ll get a break in the summertime . Shotgun fungus most often hap a result of wood chip mulch but it can also shape via moulder wood or decaying devolve tree .
How to Get Rid of Shotgun Fungus
The spore dotting your family may notfit in with your redecorating architectural plan , but they wo n’t cause any structural terms , nor will they grow there . They just wo n’t hail off very easy . If you have new vinyl radical siding that ’s still shiny , and you know that the spores have n’t been adhere to the siding for more than a few days , you might be able-bodied topower - wash them away .
Do n’t be tempt to sand or use rough cleanser to slay the mold , because either one will likely damage your siding .
How to Prevent Shotgun Fungus
Though you may be stuck with a few black dapple for a while , here ’s how you may keep the fungus from shooting any more spores at your house :
