DIY Get Rid of Dog Vomit Fungus in Mulch Bed

Have you ever seen what looks like dog vomit or scrambled eggs show up in your mulch bed on a hot summer day after a heavy rain or watering your lawn at night? I watered at night and ended up with this fungus that looks like my dog ate something and barfed right in the mulch. Turns out this stuff is actually called dog vomit slime mold, and it's a protist not a fungus technically. If the vomit looking part matures it releases clouds of brown spores in order to spread to new areas. It's virtually impossible to get rid of, but I found a DIY way to control it that is easy to do and inexpensive. 

Dog vomit slime mold in mulch bed

If you see the dog vomit slime mold looking like this when it is still yellow, like scrambled eggs, then it is not too late to treat it. If it already has a hard dry outer shell then the inside is already packed with brown spores. The spores are hydrophobic meaning they repel water, so spraying it with the hose actually causes the spores to spread even more. 

If you catch it early while it is still yellow like this, spray it with white vinegar. This is a mild acid, and I wouldn't recommend doing it right next to a sensitive plant. But I did it next to some bushes and it was fine. I sprayed the dog vomit slime mold with vinegar and saw the tops start to melt away. Take that!

Dog vomit fungus melting away with vinegar

24 hours later the parts I sprayed were melted brown slime that dried up without producing spores. Spraying it with vinegar was so much easier than trying to dig it up and move it or throwing out a whole layer of mulch. This seems to do the trick, but I'm not a scientist I just tried different things to see what works. 

24 hours later

The thing sent out some extra yellow piles that I also sprayed and they dissolved the same as before. Again, this will definitely add some acid to your mulch bed but it didn't take that much to treat the dog vomit and so far so good I haven't had any damage to my plants. 

What 5 Yards of Mulch Looks Like and How Long It Took To Spread

This was my first year getting bulk mulch delivered rather than buying bags of mulch from Lowes. Like many homeowners, I had no idea how to estimate the number of cubic yards of mulch I would need (and I've seen neighbors end up with a mountain of mulch for just a few flower beds). I needed a way to estimate how much mulch I would need in cubic yards. The mulch website had a calculator on it, but when I added up all my bed dimensions it came out with a wacky number like 100 yards of mulch. 

What worked for me, and again I'm not an expert, I went to Google Maps and used the measure tool. Right click on the map and you can create a measurement. I measured the perimeter of my mulch beds around my house and then assumed a 3 foot width of the beds for the entire length on the mulch calculator. I didn't include the mulch around the trees or other beds because I assumed the measurement of the driveway and other areas where I don't have mulch would cancel out. Maybe I got lucky, but this worked out perfectly for me with 5 yards of mulch covering my beds with none left over. 

5 yards of mulch in a pile on the driveway

Using Google Maps to estimate yards of mulch

The delivery driver was a pro and got most of the mulch right in the center of the tarp. It was funny when he opened the doors the mulch was packed in and stayed in the shape of the truck. I was definitely happy I used a tarp - not because I was worried about getting the driveway dirty, but because as the pile gets smaller and more spread out, it's nice to have an easy way to pool the mulch back in the middle so it's scoopable. 

I did this all by myself in a weekend and it took me about 10 hours. I think it took longer than it should have because I was carefully spreading and shaping edges as I was going instead of just quickly dumping. 

Some tools that came in extremely handy (I will never spread mulch again without them!) are a pitchfork and a heavy duty wagon. The tines on the pitchfork let it easily glide into the mulch but then the mulch clumps itself together so really it's like a shovel and the mulch doesn't really fall between the tines of the fork. The heavy duty wagon spreads the weight out over 4 wheels so it doesn't leave ruts in my lawn like a wheelbarrow would. The Gorilla Cart even has a dumping action that saved me time.

The whole thing would have gone faster if I wasn't also shaping the bed as I was going, here are some more photos:

Helleborus and holly with new mulch around them

The downspout by my new mulch bed is the strongest current when it rains, so I wanted to extend the downspout without making it look ugly. I tried these brown downspout extenders which are pretty good - but 2 of them don't quite get me to the edge of the bed so I added rocks. It's temporary but at least now I'm not drowning my plants and washing away all the mulch. 

Downspout extender under mulch with rocks

New Plants Around Utility Boxes

I'm no stranger to hiding utility boxes with plants to not only make it more attractive but also make it easier to mow around. Before I did this utility box landscaping my neighbor said he was coming out with scissors to cut the grass in between the power box and internet box in the front yard. 

Here is an After photo from October

At our old house, I had a great utility box combination of feather reedgrass, coneflower, iris, and asters. I wanted to try something a little different here because all of those plants die to the ground in the winter and only do a good job hiding the utility boxes for 7 months out of the year. So I wanted to do something evergreen this time but I didn't want to have to wait years for it to grow either. 

My compromise was to plant one emerald green arborvitae in the front that will eventually get 4 feet wide and hide most of the boxes from the front view, but in the meantime I wanted to hide the boxes from the side so I used one of my favorite ornamental grasses 'Northwind' switchgrass. 

I also got a few drought tolerant flowers called Gaillardia aristata 'Spintop Copper Sun' that won't really get tall enough to hide anything but they are blooming like crazy and don't need a lot of water. 

I started by rounding up the grass in the shape of the bed using a hose as a guide for the shape. I waited about a week for the grass to fully die and added a very thick layer of mulch. I called 811 before the dig to mark the utility lines, but since my mulch was so thick I actually didn't even dig into the ground I just pushed the mulch aside, added topsoil and the plants are all planted above the clay soil in nice mounded topsoil and surrounded by mulch. 

I don't have anything in the back yet and I'd still like to add some coneflower, but for now at least I don't have to mow between the boxes and it looks a little better. The plants are so small that they aren't completely hiding anything really, not yet anyway.