However, I'm more confused now than ever. I'm not sure now
whether my maple
is suffering from powdery mildew, woolly aphids or what. The
lower leaves
seem to be the most affected, and the powdery white stuff is on
the
underside of the leaves. It is a fine white powder with some
larger masses.
This seems to mean it may be woolly aphid instead of powdery
mildew?
Also I found what looked like a mealy bug on it today. Would a
mealy bug
infestation result in the white stuff on the leaves? To be sure
I'm
continuing with the copper oxychloride and have started
spraying with
insecitcide.

STOP! You'll kill the tree. Mixing chemicals on a tree's leaves
creates (or may create) new chemicals that only a Phd chemist
could figure out. You may be endangering your tree as well as
kids, cats, sacks and wives (in or out of St. Ives).

Do NOT spray your tree with something unless you KNOW that
whatever is on your tree is an appropriate target for that
chemical. In other words, read the label and follow it.

How do you find out what's on your tree? Well, as you have
discovered, asking for a sight-unseen diagnosis here leaves you
with a shotgun response one of whose pellets of information may
or may not be correct.

There are three more or less reliable ways to identify an insect
or disease on your tree.

The most definitive is to take a leaf (or leaves) to your local
agricultural extension office (or for folks in other countries
who don't have these valuable community tools, a local
agricultural departement in a university) or a GOOD nursery (NOT
Wal-Mart or Home Depot types) and have someone ID the problem.

Second option is to buy either the "Ortho Home Gardener's Problem
Solver" or the "Southern Living Garden Problem Solver" (Sunset
may have one, too) and find the insect, disease, or fungus, etc.
there and follow those recommendations.

The third (and most questionable, accuracy-wise unless you are
careful) is to use the web. Try:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/index.html
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/2...t/families.htm
http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entom...ts/eftrees.htm

My one-time favorite bug pages at the University of Florida seem
to have vanished. UoF has a web"master" who can't stop diddling,
and a page doesn't stay in the same place long enough to bookmark
:-(

I've isolated it and put it in a position with good air
circulation and sun (I think this is part of the overall
problem I'm having
with many of my plants - overcrowding. Too many plants in too
little space.
Well, I can't help myself, I see it, I like it I buy it. Just
have to make
more room :-).

I'd suggest a bit of self-control here. Until you get to knowing
what you are doing (which includes identifying the common pests
and plant diseases in your area) you will lose more than you
save.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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