Are you sure this is a filimenfus fungus and not slime mold. Have you had very wet weather followed by hot temperatures. If you have it is probably slime mold. Shovel it out and put it in the garbage. That is all the treatment you need to get rid if it. Slime mold is actually a benificial mold in the right places. It breaks down dead debris. It's not good in the flower bed because it can kill living tissue too. The silver insect sounds like silverfish. Look closely does it look like a fish laying on its side. They are attracted to damp places. I don't know what the other insect is but it is probably attracted to the mold. Get rid of the mold and you'll get rid of the bugs

If this thread is still 'alive'...I would greatly appreciate a 'use-identification' anyone can offer. I have no idea what it is...found it in my parents collection and they were married late 1940s. It is 3.5" in diameter x 3" tall, and only markings are "Wallace" & "88" on the underside. (I covered my Dad's personal etched i.d. info w orange tape). It has a fish and maybe acanthus leaf design, a square opening on top-center, and round opening (not threaded) on bottom-center. Is this some sort of flower-stem holder for a vase?? Thanks for any thoughts!!!

Well, with the dog dip, it makes the plant poisonous to the sucking insects, so I don't even remove scale, I just spray with the spray andaftera day or so, I check to see if the scale comes off easily, that means the spray worked. Without maiming the plant. if you do decide to do surgery, you need to be sure to keep it DRY DRY DRY while the wounds are healing. You can go with manual removal, the spray I recommended or the systemic that Neil offered. It may even be betterthanthe dog dip which ibelieve still costs like 16 bux. its also off label use, so use at your own risk, I don't recommend putting the plant outside while it is treated with the dog dip or the systemic, I believe they are both detrimental to the pollinators, I could be wrong though. I know the dog dip has risks associated with it for sure. and it kills spiders :( but is also effective against mosquito, almost any type of mite.

I am involved in Landscape restoration for wildlife on acreage. I have this invasive grass called KR Bluestem from Eurasia or China, I forget. It does take over in my area and the control methods for it keep changing as the research changes from Year to year.. I have gone from winter Burning to summer (very scary) burning to no burning and now they are telling me to plant Silver bluestem, another non native because it will compete with the KR BS and then the native BS will compete with the silver BS .. Its all a bunch of BS piled high and thick. I wonder what they will say next year. I did go collect Native BS from my back more pure grassland area and will be digging in patches of it out in the front field where the major part of the KR BS is.Actually one faction of the Landscape restoration society says that KKR BS is good BS for getting the water down to the water table. I just sit on the background and nod my head. By the way, skipper butterflies are very partial to KR BS. There are those that think that one should strive for pre-contact ( before white man) look, whatever that is considering , nature is always in a process of change. It is a big controversy among the people here. I do find that those Pragmatist have better grasslands with more wildlife and less loss of soil than the guys that are running restoration program at the Big Bend national park where their soil los is over 2' since they took the cattle off..