Yellow Mushrooms In My Houseplant: What I Did Wrong And What Happened To The Plant

Yes, you read that right. YELLOW MUSHROOMS in one of my favorite house plants. This Monstera Deliciosa was one of the most recent additions to my plant collection. In fact, it found it’s way to my home and heart months ago when I found it for $17. Little did I know, finding small yellow mushrooms in your houseplant’s soil is a pretty common problem.

During the months after coming home, I repotted it into a self watering container and lovingly cleaned the leaves. It quickly started pushing out new leaves so I thought all was well. That was until I started noticing some weird changes in the soil.

One morning while watering, I noticed a weird white substance in a patch weaved into the houseplant’s soil.

About a week later, much to my sensitive stomach’s dismay, I saw a couple very distinct looking objects sticking out the soil in the same area where the white patch was located. I now know those were mushroom spores.

When I got closer, I realized there were yellow mushrooms spread throughout the soil. I had no idea that mushrooms could grow in houseplants. Heck, this was the first year I even realized how frequent mushrooms grow in lawns and vegetable gardens.

Like any modern person, I took to the internet for some clarity. A couple google searches helped me identify them as Plant pot Dapperling or Leucocoprinus birnbaumii if you want to get technical.

What Are Plant Pot Dapperlings?

Plantpot dapperling is common in warmer climates and can pop up in indoor houseplants and flowerpots.

According to some sources, they are mildly to significantly poisonous if consumed. With young children in the house, I’m always concerned with what can be touched if one got curious enough. So, I did not want to take any chances.

Through reading this post, I learned changing the houseplant soil and planter might help. But it went on to share that changing the soil might not completely get rid of the fungus. The fungus may be found in several inches of soil in indoor plants.

How To Get Rid of Mushrooms In Your Houseplant?

1. Change Your Soil

All of the sources I checked with suggested changing the potting mix and cleaning the plant’s pot as soon as possible. Soil that is too moist can also increase your chance of fungal spores and fungus gnats.

Spores of this mushroom could spread to other houseplants if you’re not careful. Replacing the potting medium with fresh soil is your first line of defense.

2. Make Sure Your Plant Has Good Drainage

As I’ve mentioned before, I purchased a self watering planter with the hopes that it would make my life easier. Most of these planters are plastic and are not expensive.

But, in hindsight, the best way to make sure your plants have enough drainage is to pick a plant pot that is much more breathable. I pick terracotta pots now because of this. This gives the plants a good chance of surviving even if you accidentally overwater them.

You also want to make sure the bottom of the pot has a drainage hole.

3. Make Sure Your Soil Is Dry-ish Before You Water

Plants love moist soil. However, too much is not always a good thing.

It’s a good idea to wait until your soil gets dry before you water it. This can prevent little yellow mushrooms and the fruit of that fungus to develop in the soil. Too much water can also lead to root rot which can kill the plant.

4. Decide If You Can Live With It

At the end of the day, most resources state having houseplant mushrooms as generally harmless. It’s probably best to keep small children away from them and other foreign types of mushrooms as a safety precaution in general.

However, you can absolutely choose to keep the plant if it is not bothering it.

Due to the extent of the infestation observed throughout the soil once I took it out the pot, and having small kids around, I decided to ultimately get rid of the plant. I did take a few cuttings from the monstera to propagate before it was completely gone.

Let me know if this was helpful in the comments below.

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