By Lesleyparker
United Kingdom 
My Medanilla Magnifica has a beatiful flower on it but is giving out a sticky substance and is covered with a cotton wool like substance. Is this normal as it didn't do it last year. Also it has two new shoots that don't look like flowering.
1 Jun, 2011
Not normal - you have an infestation of some description. Probably Mealy bug - the "cotton wool" is the immobile larvae. I've only had a slight infestation of this once and used a spray and also a cotton wool bud dipped in surgical spirit.
Check out the link below........
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=201
1 Jun, 2011