However, my poor plant, which I was watering and feeding religiously, got attacked my powdery mildew. Since I have no idea what I'm doing, I didn't realize that was the culprit since initially I'd seen aphids and thought the curling was because of them. I sprayed for the aphids only and didn't remove infected leaves, since I didn't realize they were infected. So today, when I finally had a moment to google what I had, I ended up butchering all my new growth. It had been growing like gangbusters, too. So sad.

So, did I do it right? I cut off all the infected leaves (sometimes just the whole cane, since every leaf on it was infected) that I could see were infected, even those that were just suspect (no mildew, just curling) I have Bayer Advanced that I will apply next. So do I just keep spraying every week? Should I assume this will be an ongoing battle? The plant gets full sun but might have been crowded since I didn't prune to thin out and it's near the arbor. I didn't think I was supposed to thin until after I started training. I guess I'm concerned because when I was learning about ZD it said it was important not to cut new canes before starting training. I didn't have a choice, did I?

Powdery mildew requires a very narrow range of temperatures and high humidity. Blame the outbreak on the weather and the variety's susceptibility rather than your cultural practices.