Gosh, yes a photo would help. There are so many fungi out there.

We definitely need a photo to help you are you seeing any fruiting bodies, actual fungi, in your garden? If so can you take a photo of those too please.

Don't worry about honey fungus, it isn't that - the underground root system for that is like black bootlaces. If your border was happily growing anything at all before you turned it over, the white mycelium you're finding are harmless, and just a component of the soil in that area. Often found in dry situations, particularly near large shrubs and trees, and in soil which hasn't been dug for a while, and may even be beneficial - I've just planted roses and added mycorrhizal fungi to the soil in the planting hole to assist them.

thank you all for your replies, an update:

firstly i have dug as much out as i can just in case its not good,
secondly, i will take a picture today and load it (not done that before though!)
and thirdly, it is difficult to say if anything will grow as this is the third summer that i have had no plants in the garden as 2 years ago i wanted to re-plan my garden. my then boyfriend got all his mates round with a digger and got rid of everything, so for 2 years and 3 summers i have looked out onto a building site. needless to say nothing further was done as he was disinterested and the relationship failed. its only recently i had work started again due to money issues. i do remember though that i did find 2 mushrooms growing in the garden but they were about 3 foot away from where i found the fungus (after everything was dug up) the thing is i have been digging away all weekend and have discovered the little white roots in other parts of the garden. i am so excited at the prospect of having flowers in the garden this year so this is worrying me quite a bit :-(

Whilst you may not have grown anything deliberately, did anything at all colonise the dug over areas while it was sitting untouched? Weeds? or did the soil just sit there for 2 years bare, with nothing popping up in it at all?

lots of weeds! most of which i am used to here but there was one that was popping up all over the garden, they looked like fushia leaves which i thought was strange as that had never happened before but as they got bigger and flowered they had tiny little pink flowers on them. no idea what they were!!

Then I really wouldn't worry about the white fungal mycelium you're finding - if it was really serious, nothing at all would grow there.

i have added some pictures at last. in the last one you will notice the 'normal' colour of my soil hence how it was so noticeable. sorry they are not overly clear but it gives you an idea.

Perfectly normal... panic not!

Exactly what I expected to see.

i dont understand! so what is it then? it definately looks like fungus to me! please dont tell me i dug all that soil out for nothing !! :-)

The soil is full of fungus, you just can't see it most of the time -when it gets dry, particularly around old, large shrubs or trees, you often find this obvious white stuff. Just as well it is full of things you can't see, a lot of them enable plants to grow.