FUNGI TOWN Friend or Foe? A gardener’s guide to fungi

In 2017, Dr Jassy Drakulic asked UK gardeners to report their sightings of honey fungus. Hundreds responded. It was the start of research that has reshaped how the RHS thinks about fungi in our gardens, not as pests to be eradicated, but as an ecosystem already quietly at work beneath our feet.

Jassy is a Senior Plant Pathologist at the RHS and author of the new book RHS Fungi for Gardeners. In this talk, she asks whether typical gardening habits are suppressing fungal life that is already helping your plants, and explains what recent research reveals about what is really going on underground.

You will come away with practical, low-effort changes: what to leave alone, what to avoid, and how to garden alongside fungi rather than against them.