Hmm.... Well, thank you everyone for your input! I really appreciate it. It does look, however, like there's not much I can do about it. My yard is full of large oak trees, so I don't think it's possible to get rid of the aphids completely if they are up in the trees. Kinda gross to think that they are dropping this stuff all over my yard, my cars, and even me, I guess, when I'm out there working, lol! I'm guessing this won't hurt the plants, although I still wonder why its not on any of the other hostas. Maybe the thick blue leaves show it more than the others... Thanks again! Dee

Black Sooty Mold grows on the upper surfaces of leaves where other overhanging foliage above them have sucking insects on their reverses. As the insects suck the plant sap, they excrete sugar water which falls on the tops of the underlying foliage. Sooty, black mold grows in the sugar water making the surfaces black and 'sooty', but not in dots. What you describe sounds like old rust where the orange pustules have lived their useful lives. Rust often turns black toward the end of the fungus' life cycle, and it can be "sooty" feeling. I agree, clear photos would certainly help. Here is an image I found on line of "old rust". Kim Here is a link that might be useful: old rust

Apologies for the triple post -- it seems that the soil that my tree is in, is quick draining enough that it's less soaked now than it was a few hours ago. I'm not as worried about it now, as I was then. I've been descaling it now with laytex gloves, q-tips and rubbing alcohol for something like four hours. Before that, I washed the tree down for an hour in the bath tub with a shower nozzle set to jet -- takes longer when you don't have the water pressure. What got me in a panic, was a slight change in color when I finished spraying down the plant. After the slight paranoia wore off, it finally occurs to me what the *most likely* culprit for the 'color change' is. Cleaner leaves. :lol: Many of the lower leaves were covered in a light crust of sooty mold, it hadn't killed 'em off yet, but it did curl them and make them very dull. Since the sooty mold was more or less removed, they appeared lighter. Not 'green', because the mold paled the leaves a bit. It's hard to eye my tree for signs of distress, since it's pretty much been under distress since far back before I purchased it. However, I'll keep an eye on it for.. erm, further distress. I will make a few casual observations about my tree after having examined each leaf, stem, and thorn repeatedly over several hours.... First, the leaves grow really really fast, and I'm not fertilizing. It's kinda impressive, a node of leaves I know to be new, has doubled and tripled in size over the course of a few days. Second, the tree perks up very very quickly as leaves are actually uncurling in front of me. So, I guess I'll say one thing that'll help out fellow newbies, should they search for 'scale' or 'overwatering' in the future. The best thing about descaling by hand, with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol, is you get to know your tree really really well. It becomes very easy to tell when you're getting new growth, and you're so familiar with it, you can tell just by looking if it's in distress or feeling better. There, silver lining. How uncharacteristic of me.

Any chance of a photo? Is it in a pot or in the ground? And what area/climate are you? If the root system is not completely damaged and there is some life left in the stems, there is a good chance of recovery though it may be slow. If the leaves are dead they won't help being attached, so pruning the plant back a bit should help stimulate some re-growth. Just water moderately, don't go the opposite way and drown it just because it dried out. Depending on your answer and a possible photo then we could probably help more as to whether or not to give it a little fertilizer or other help. Gardenias are pretty hardy but susceptible to scale insects which often leads to sooty mould that can weaken the plant.