Just checking in this thread to make sure no one has found a magic potion for artillery fungus. Over the years, I’ve just simply explained what it is, that it can’t be cleaned with chems or power washing, and offer several online resources for them to understand that what I’m saying is legit and how to prevent it. I also caution them against trying to scrub it themselves because they will remove the oxidation on their siding and have a bunch of clean spots mixed into their oxidation.
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I usually show them on two or three specs that even if I scrape it off with my fingernail it still is there. That usually ends any further questions they have about it. In my experience (which isn’t much by any means) is that I see it mostly of vinyl sided homes / painted wooded railings when there is colored mulch nearby.
I get asked about this a lot by people, I point them here:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/d/ddd2/
He hasn’t updated it in 2 years, but since 2012 the list of remedies is long but all involve a lot of scrubbing.
I tried most of them two summers ago on my mom’s house.
None of them worked.
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@PPWofLexSC There’s nothing worse when you do that in front of a customer and it actually comes off lol
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4321 (5 letter minimum to post met)
Currently, I am taking a continuing education course through Clemson University for a type of landscape certification for my full-time job. I just came across a slide that spoke about the super exciting world of mulch. Now that I have your attention, the subject of artillery fungus came up and makes the following statement : mulch (bagged or bulk) that is "made from shredded pallets usually harbor the fungi called artillery fungus. This fungus lives on non-bark wood and literally launches it’s spores in the air which can land on siding. These spores can be very difficult to remove even with pressure washing. The other issue with recycled pallets is that unlike bark mulch, it can attract termites.
Feel free to use that little nugget of information when discussing with customers what types of mulch they should consider in the future if they ask you.
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Huh, didn’t know mulch can be made from pallets. I’ve been battling artillery fungus for decades.
It’s comes from pine. Lots of pallets are pine but so is a lot of mulch
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Does it say on the bag “Made from pallets”? Lol. What are they looking for on the bag of mulch to indicate what type it is.
That’s an excellent question. Next time I’m at Lowe’s I’ll have to flip over a bag and see what it states.
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lol. I guess I could do the same. 
I just thought there might be keywords to be looking for. Like “shredded pallets present”…kind of like the wording on hotdog packages.
Cedar mulch doesn’t produce shotgun spores
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Not mulch is usually the best answer…
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Pure cedar, not cedar blended mulch, and pure cypress, once again no blend, do not attract bugs and do not give off artillery fungus. Most of the stuff they sell in the big box stores is blended. RUral kind was selling “blended” cypress mulch, which means for every 200 pallets they threw in one cypress tree. Who knows what the ratio was, blended can mean anything as there are no laws governing it.
Personally, after it happened at my house, I have removed all the wood mulch and have either river rocks or rubber mulch. The shredded rubber mulch is pricey though.
Regarding pallets, they aren’t all the same. I learned this by going to a pallet plant. The ones going OVERSEAS require hardwoods.
