Question
I have mildew on my roses and some of my other flowering plants.  My poor roses look awful.  I kind of remember reading about "rubbing alcohol" as a spray.  I do remember reading that it will not hurt your plants,vegetables, or fruits.  I can't remember if it was mixed with water and how often you could use it.  Can you help?                THANK YOU  Jeanie

Answer
Hi Jean;
I never heard of alcohol killing mold or mildew. Bleach would, and I use bleach on any mildew in my house. don't think it would hurt plants, but I would not risk it with my roses. I don't risk NUTHIN with me roses!!!
I use baking soda disolved in water. It keeps black spot off mt roses. That may be what you have. Black spot can defoliate a rose bush in a matter of weeks. It starts with little black spots on the leaves, and then the black spots get yellow rings around them, and then the whole leaf turns yellow and falls off.
Pick all the affected leaves off, and be sure to not leave them on the ground, or they will re-infect the plant. Disolve baking soda,I use about 1 small box of soda to each gallon of water, spray on entire plant, be sure to spray underneath the leaves too.
This also keeps powdery mildew and other fungii off any plants affected by them.
Brown patch in the lawn is a fungus. I saturate the  brown patch with this solution, and soak the ground well, and rake or pull up all the brown grass. It always fixes it right up.
Baking soda is good for any mold or fungus!!!
Best to spray your roses in the spring, at the first sign of new growth, and again after the rainy season.
If you live far enough south to have a lot of growing season left, you could prune the roses back some,enough to get all the affected blooms and buds off,rake up all the affected clippings, and spray. You may get a whitish powder residue on the leaves, if the soda is not disolved completely. This will not hurt the plants, it just doesn't look great, but it is just baking soda that didn't disolve.
If you have a very bad case of it, it wouldn't hurt to spray again in a couple of days. Really be sure all that $^%$ stuff is killed out.
Crepe Myrtle and some other plants get powdery mildew a lot. I spray everything that can get the stuff, with the baking soda.
If you get mildew on clothes, pouring alcohol on them does nothing, so I don't think it would do anything to fungus on plants.
Charlotte