Welcome, Rich. Your bay has scale which secretes a sticky substance called honeydew. That's what the mould grows on. Scale is hard to eradicate even with poisons and personally I wouldn't bother. The problem may be much less next year. You can see it as small bumps on the stems which will scrape off with a finger nail. The leaves are perfectly safe to cook with if you wash them thoroughly. BTW 7ft is by no means mature height for a bay. It can get to 30 feet but will cope with heavy trimming. This is my neighbours bay.

If you take sour cream and put it in a cheesecloth and let most of the water leak out, you essentially have cream cheese. Except that yours doesn't have starch, guar gum, or any of the other stabilizers/additives. So that's a great way to do it. Or you can use yogurt and do the same thing. Whatever you don't use, you can form into little balls and submerge in olive oil with some herbs.

JO, Congrats on your explosive success with the mighty mouse. It is an adorable (can you say that) hosta with its dainty bouquet of flowers when in bloom. Last year, I thought I would be "tarred and feathered" when I said that Katherine Lewis would rival June with intensity of color in "my" garden. Even Don Rawson came out of the woodwork posting his gorgeous photo of June. In her second year, Katherine Lewis emerged with 7 - 8 pips and promises to be glorious this year. Last year This year so far - We shall see my friends - we shall see LOL

Talking about scammers, almost every day I get a friend request on Facebook from some handsome 50 something, widowed man. I know it is a scam, but on looking at their friends list, they usually have none to show or just a few very elderly ladies. Sometimes their descriptions are really funny, because it is obvious that english is not their first language. And I know a woman who fell for one of these guys. She is a widow, and had a little money. Not wealthy but able to live comfortably. She came to see me one day. She had been out looking at houses for sale. Told me about her new "guy", who was originally from Virginia, but working in Indonesia, as an electrician and making $750,000 a year. He was due to come see her that weekend. She had been out and got a new manicure and pedicure and even had her makeup tattooed on...in expectation of his impending visit. Of course he had some kind of problems and she had to send him $5000. I told her he was probably a Nigerian. Couldn't convince her. I told her to please bring him to meet me, if he showed up. Of course, he didn't. I don't know how much money she ended up sending him.