Once the conditions change for the fungus it will probably not be a problem. Spray it with soapy water, rinse, let dry - it should be safe for the cat. Brooke

Thank you, rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7. Let me respond point by point: . "P., baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, not calcium bicarbonate (whatever that is). Sodium bicarbonate really does work." I meant sodium; I don't know how calcium got into my head! . "I worry a little about your prescription for the vinegar. It's very important that the dosage be accurate or leaf tissue can be burned. I also think that a warning about the very real effect that 2 or 3 T. of vinegar/gal. of water can do to the soil pH if carelessly watered in on a routine basis is important." My precscription for the vinegar is clear (as opposed to blackeyedgurl's "diluted"), and has been tested (by me) on catnip. (Note: "Vinegar" means the 5% vinegar that's what one gets at a store.) It's always the case that one may want to try even more-dilute mixtures first, especially on fragile or valuable plants. And concerning your "carelessly watered in": To be clear, I wasn't talking about "watering in", just spraying the foliage (although some say that lightly spraying the surface of the soil can help with fungus gnats). Of course, when one sprays the foliage, there's always the issue of how much ends up in the soil. Optimally, none would - and I work to achieve that as much as possible - but lotsa times, that's unavoidable to some extent. Note that this vinegar solution is so dilute that application such as the above shouldn't change the pH of any soil-based medium, absent extreme over-administration. . "I always cringe a little when someone recommends pure soap or real soap, but don't explain what that means. I suggest that anyone discussing a 'pure soap' be prepared to give examples, brand names. I assume that you mean a plant based liquid soap, free from fragrances and dyes?" So do I - especially since I killed two camellias by using dish-washing liquid that must've had some extra ingredients (duh! talk about careless! I should've tried it on a small part of the plants first.)). Since then, I've used Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile liquid, without any problem. I'm confident that other Castile soaps - either liquid or solid - would be just fine - as would Ivory, no doubt. . "My favorite home remedy for PM is 1 T. baking soda, 1 tsp. horticultural oil, 1 tsp. insecticidal soap, and 1 gallon of water." I've not used oil, since it seems that (and sounds like) it would introduce unnecessary problems. Relatedly, several sources I found said that Baking Soda is ineffective without horticultural oil!

I'm having PM problems right now. I tried keeping clematis indoors this winter -- the Garland series that was allegedly designed to be an indoor plant -- and they did okay until just a couple weeks ago when powdery mildew trashed them. The way I've heard it, it is more effective to do preventive maintenance before PM arrives, than to try to treat it after it has set in. Some people advocate spraying a solution of baking soda on the leaves, but I haven't tried it.

I never had a problem with mildew until lately. Now I have seen it on a number of different plants growing in different locations around the house, inside and outside. So, I am a bit of a beginner on this question too. In the past few years I have just used lysol aerosol spray on the foliage. It seemed to work. On a semperflorens begonia it stopped the mildew and by pruning back the affect leggy stems, I had a new crop of clean foliage that grew out and stayed nice for the rest of the summer. But, this winter I had mildew on one sinningia (hirsuta) on my lightstand. It never seemed to affect the surrounding plants but it persisted on the hirsute leaves of hirsuta. I sprayed it with lysol, which seemed to work for several weeks, but then the mildew kept returning. Now, I have read about the non-fungicide treatments like milk, baking soda, cinnamon, chamomile tea and a few others. I always joke that if they don't work on the mildew at least one can make cookies. But, I still need to figure out what I should actually do. It looks like I will need to add mildew to my list of pests that I treat. That seems to be what plant collecting is all about--a slowly growing personal list of pests that one gets, and must deal with. I have had friends in the business of growing and selling mass numbers of gesneriads, AV's, orchids, and other plants, who regularly treated their greenhouse plants with fungicides. I never had that kind of large scale problem, but I guess it large crops it can be a more persistant pest than insects. i know that they can be very problematic on crops of AVs. I would suspect that you could try lysol, milk, etc. and then graduate to fungicides if the first line doesn't work at eliminating the mildew. Hopefully someone with more experience on treating mildew can pipe in. I did learn from one friend that changing cultural practices alone is not enough. Once mildew infects a plant the mildew must be killed or it will keep coming back. I just remembered that last year or so, we had a poster from New Zealand, on the begonia forum who posted photos of his tuberous begonias--just spectactular. He had a whole back yard of hundreds of plants all in full bloom. He swore by milk, as a spray to control mildew. Jon PS (and a note to myself): I haven't been over to the begonia forum lately. There might be some good info on mildew that I haven't seen.