Both situations can be addressed with a copper based fungicide beginning in late spring before obvious symptoms occur but if truly a fungal issue, improving cultural conditions should eliminate any need for treatment.

Keeping them well spaced seems to be the key, and contrary to what we normally assume, keeping them well-watered really seems to help prevent mildew.

The next year I had BES everywhere - in every bed, next to every shrub, grass, & tree, mixed into my Pink Turtlehead -but no mold/mildew/fungus anywhere! Prior to this I had never had a single seedling anywhere.

Since then the BES have spread & grown. I pull them out where & whenever I find them, let them grow any place I like, & yank them in full bloom if the color seems to glaringly wrong. I have a full garden, mulch heavily and seldom have much seeding of anything, but I must have spread the BES seed into every nook and cranny.

I will never be rid of them, not that I completely want to be, & I haven't actually tried hard to get rid of them, just control them somewhat. Once in awhile they even arrange themselves quite nicely all by themselves.

So beware - if you dig them up, be careful, and don't do it on a windy day, with seed already set & raring to go .....everywhere.

BES wasn't part of the plan. If you look hard you can still see the Turtleheads behind them. Picture is from 9/3/04 in the back yard the season after I removed ALL the BES (they were in the side yard). Since then I have removed the sedums behind the bench (too many bees) and let the BES have that space back as far as they want to go toward the tree, but have to shovel prune then to give the turtles and daylilies & little shrubs their space.

My original BES looks like this:

But many of the seedlings look like this:

Hard to believe they are such close relatives.

All my BES seedlings have been exactly the same, & as far as I can tell, exactly the same as the original no-name plants. Too bad! I really like that orange flower and I am one of the few gardeners, it sometimes seems on the forums here, who uses a lot of orange in my gardens.

Funny thing is I don't really like orange with reds & yellows in the hot combos you see in books. And although I like orange fine with just yellow, I really prefer it with deep blue-purple, dark foliages, dark russets (a sort of dark red orange I guess), & bronzy-green foliages. My favorite combos though are oranges with blue-greens & silvers. I think I'll go out and buy some orange annuals for the fall! Thanks for posting the pictures.