What's killing my shrubs???

Over the past few years quite a lot of shrubs in our garden have died. About 10 years ago a very old beech tree in our neighbour's garden had to be removed because it had become dangerous as a result of honey fungus growth. More recently we have had large areas of the fungus shown in the attached image appearing in our lawns. Are these three things connected? Is the fungus that we are seeing honey fungus and could this be the cause of shrubs dying? Any information will be gratefully received and any advice on what could be done to stop the rot would be even better!

 

The only way to be sure is to excavate around the dead shrubs to see if there are black 'bootlace-like' strings running just under the surface of the soil. If so then, yes, it's the dreaded honey fungus. Armillatox used to be sold as a soil steriliser but no idea whether it's still available in UK. The RHS produced a shortlist of resistant plants but the received wisdom used to be 'move house'
I do hope that you are able to overcome it. Good luck!

 

It does look a bit like honey fungus.

 

Thanks for both the responses above. We have looked but haven't seen any black bootlace-like strings around the roots of the dead plants, which is why i wanted to check if the photo suggested another explanation.

Pete, do you mean the photo looks like honey fungus or, from my description of the problem, it looks like it?

 

I pulled the following off Google images There are a lot of photos....some do look like yours and some don't. If there are no 'bootlaces' in the surrounding soil, your toadstools are possibly just growing on already-decaying roots. It does seem a bit suspicious though that you've lost several shrubs when honey-fungus has been confirmed nearby.

 

I basically meant the toadstools look like honey fungus, but I'm no expert, I was just going by google images and some that I assume are honey fungus in a wooded area of our local park.

 

I think its very difficult to say just by looking at the pics. The ones in the pic also look like Death Cap to me.

http://www.gallowaywildfoods.com/?page_id=663

(PS. Please don't be misled by the link having the word 'food' in it. Death Cap is most definitely not food, as it makes clear in the article at the link).