Kitchen Garden Forum

I hope it's acceptable to include a query on Mahonia on the Kitchen Garden website...the fruit are supposed to be edible!
It's just to say that the mature Mahonia in our garden appears to have died over the winter. I'm very surprised by this as I normally think of them as being as tough as old boots, and as far as I'm aware it was perfectly healthy last year. The winter has been mild and not as wet as in some recent years.
The only thing I'd note is that a neighbour planted a Photinia a year or two back which also seems to have died, but it is some distance from our Mahonia, and at a kind of L-shaped angle round the corner of the house...

Honey fungus, Ken?

Well, that's what worries me. I haven't dug round the roots yet to look for 'boot laces' but I guess I'll have to try that. No other plants in our garden have succumbed as far as I can see.

No, it wasn't honey fungus. Something simpler and less sinister. Having cut all the branches off and chopped them up for recycling, I pushed against the main trunk, and it moved. A bit more heaving from different sides and it came out easily. It had hardly any root ball, and just three thin roots branching out. The mahonia predates our arrival at this house in 2010, possibly by several years, but I suspect it was very root-bound when planted, and has finally succumbed. A nice space now for a shade-loving tree or shrub, though...