Fall rains and cooler temperatures often bring mushrooms to lawns and gardens, but you don?t need to be alarmed. Mushrooms are actually the reproductive structures of fungi. If your property has mushrooms, it may indicate that your soil is healthy and a good place for trees and other plants to grow.

Fungi and bacteria play an integral role on earth. They break down complex organic compounds including proteins, carbohydrates and fats into their most basic elements. These basic compounds of life can be used by other generations of organisms. Plants rely on soil fungi and bacteria to digest these nutrients for them. In return, they feed the soil organisms with the sugars they make via photosynthesis.

Underground, below the mushrooms popping up on your lawn, are thread-like networks called hyphae. Some of these hyphae attach to plant roots, creating thread-like extensions that reach far into the soil, increasing the surface area of the plant roots up to 1,000 times. The fungal hyphae and the plant roots working together are called mycorrhizae. These intricate webs of hyphal filaments capture water and minerals and deliver them to plant roots via the mycorrhizae.