Artillery fungus is making the siding of our house unsightly; it cannot be removed without damaging the vinyl or paint.
We had 3 inches of woodchips put in our garden two years ago. Could the fungus have been in the woodchips or does it occur naturally in the soil?

What can we do? sophia

Artillery or "Shotgun" fungus can develop from overly, constantly wet and shaded woodchips from wood [u]other than bark.[/u] Not from the soil.

Many landscapers (desparate to supply many homeowners' desire for this kind of "mulch") use all sorts of discarded lumber from landfills. It's on this type of wood that the fungus thrives. It can form a mat on the surface of the larger woodchips (or chunks) and then spew it's spores onto your siding.
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/disease/mulchfun.htm
http://msucares.com/newsletters/pests/infobytes/19970407.htm
http://aginfo.psu.edu/news/july97/fungus.html

It's a son of a gun (no pun intended) to remove. Oddly enough it seems to be attracted to the lightest colored surface nearby. If that's your house or car....then...Ick!

There's no remedy for it, other than to remove all that wood or if you still want to use a wood mulch, then cover it with genuine shredded bark. Since it IS a fungus, you might want to try dousing it with some cornmeal, which is a natural fungicide. (The regular stuff you get in the supermarket.)

As for cleaning your siding...A good biodegradable detergent and lots of scrubbing,if it's vinyl. Or a repaint job if the siding is wood.

I'm sure there's some other cleaning measures that the other OGers here can suggest.

Good Luck!

gardenz