Honey fungus Posted on October 5, 2009

After the study day at Kew in the spring I was full of resolve to give my trees a thorough Kew-style mulch of woodchips. Spring-time surgery had given me substantial piles here and there in the garden. It was a shock, then, to discover, when I started to move one, that it was solid – literally stuck together – with the bootlaces of honey fungus.

Wisley soon confirmed that this is indeed Armillaria – A. gallica rather than the cruelest species, A. mellea – but definitely not something you want to spread round as mulch. ‘Compost it to 50° C’, they said. I’m afraid the bonfire is where it will go. But be warned: woodchips may not be as innocent as they seem.

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Trad’s Diary started as the editorial column of the RHS Journal when it was remodelled and relaunched as The Garden in 1975. I was responsible for the changes, wrote the column then, and still do when I have an idea, 45 years later. I am Hugh Johnson, author of Trees, The Principles of Gardening, and lots of stuff about wine.

Trad borrows his name from John Tradescant, gardener to Lord Cecil at Hatfield and to King James I, one of the first to introduce plants from abroad to England. His family name, having become extinct, seemed a fitting label for a column of garden jottings. It was adopted in 1977 by the new Trust for the Garden Museum in Lambeth, where John Tradescant (the accent is on the second syllable) lived and is buried. Today the museum is in full and exciting expansion mode. I urge you to visit its website, visit it personally, and support it as much as you can.

Trad took to the ether as a blog in 2008. There have been two anthologies, in 1993 and 2009, and since 2008 the text has been published quarterly in Hortus magazine. Scroll back, if you have time to waste, over hundreds of earlier entries. Better, use the Search button to look up things that might interest you. This index facility is priceless to the diarist; now he can see how often he repeats himself. Thanks to Simon Appleby and Bookswarm for making this happen.

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This is the third anthology of Trad’s Diary, cherry-picking the past ten years. The previous two covered the years 1975…

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