Who Wants Dog Vomit?

Today I observed a little treat in my front yard. Just outside our front door there is a large mulch covered area with pretty little bushes (I don't actually know what any of them are) that have thier own dedicated sprinkler line to keep them healthy. However, hiding in the mulch I found some fine specimens of an ugly little mold/bacteria called "Dog Vomit Fungi." No, I did not make that up; that is the standard nickname for the Fuligo septica that haunts my front yard. The photo below is not from my yard, but is a dead ringer for the six inch diameter blobs I am looking at.

It starts of as a light yellow/white color and then fades to black, from the inside out, and then to an ashy gray that --POOF - blows all over the yard. My neighbor has it too, and she says it because we have clay soil below us that traps the moisture. My online reading confirmed her explanation. Oddly enough, this mold is particularly common in desert areas like Bakersfield and Phoenix, and I'm guessing that is because the soil does trap moisture between my clay dirt and the imported sod and mulch sitting on top.

So how do you get rid of this vomit? That is the fun part. You can't. Sure you can scoop it up and throw it in the trash, but it will be back. There is no chemical treatment that is proven to work, or so I've read. One website said the only way to remove it permanently is to pave over your front yard. Yes, that would look lovely. Another said to only water your yard in the morning so any excess H20 evaporates by the end of the day. I'll give that a try, if I can figure out how to use the high tech sprinkler system that came with our house.

The good news is that I'm reading it is often a seasonal growth that flares up in September, so hopefully this is the only time I have to look at it. So far it is not too wide spread, and since I don't have much of a sense of smell I don't notice the stench I've read about on these websites. Lucky Jen.