e-mail Jane Owen with your gardening questions: jane.owen1@timesonline.co.uk

Is there anything on the market to deter pigeons from my garden? Everyday I have to scrub my patio to remove their droppings. Doreen Hughes Bexley Village, Kent

Pigeon pie so long as you live in an area where you can shoot. Even if you don’t own a gun a local farmer can usually be persuaded to shoot the pestilential birds in return for a drink and…some pigeon pie. Alternatively, pigeon-breast salad is easy and very delicious. It avoids having to gut and pluck the birds because you simply cut out their breasts, roast them with a little bacon (leave them rare) and serve on a bed of red and green leaves mingled with red currents and walnuts.

If you live in an area where guns cannot be used, sonic bird scarers (inaudible to humans) will do the trick or various balloons and kites from sites like this www.birdcontrol.net. I have farming friends who swear by bird-of-prey kites which hover above the area to be protected – they can hover on poles unless you want to stand in the garden all day. I am not recommending any of the above sites, by the way, I am simply showing you the type of product which could help you.

I am filling a plastic composter from my local council with kitchen scraps and grass cuttings plus a bit of paper/card and occasional accelerator. We've been here five months and the compost looks slimy and has a very sour smell. In our last house we produced the most wonderful compost – in two wooden slatted type bins. If I ditch the plastic bin can I dig the slimy stuff into the garden? Wendy Murphy, South Pennines

Yes, you can dig the slimy stuff into the garden and it will soon rot down. Dig a deep trench so that the smell doesn’t attract pests or pets.

If you’ve learned to make good compost with slated bins, stick with the process. Plastic bins can be tricky because the compost cannot breathe. If you want to continue with your plastic bin you could try turning the compost regularly and adding more dry material.

We're another garden-only flood victim, our large garden was under water for about three weeks in total between June and July and then again with the recent downpours. We live on 25' of clay although the top soil has been enriched over the years with horse manure and good organic compost. Unfortunately my honeysuckle, which is about 15 years old and grows up the side of my garage, was under water for all of that time. It has now lost all its leaves (after they turned brown) and this year obviously for the first time it has not flowered. Should I give up hope with it or should I leave it until the spring and see what happens? Anita Muchall Louth Lincs

I’d be prepared to bet that this honeysuckle will come back by the end of the season. Cut it back to the living stems (these show a little green if you gently scratch their surface with a thumbnail) and leave it be.

I have only just read your answer online about prices of cat scarers. In case you have not already been told they are £14.95 (plus postage) from several suppliers on eBay. I have four positioned around my garden which work very well. They stop cats mess and one is in thick foliage where cats hide to pounce on unsuspecting birds which I like to see feeding and bathing in my garden. Trish Harris, Roydon

There are some great bargains to be had but, with cat scarers, you need to have the movement-triggered sonic devices for long-term effectiveness – and these tend to be expensive. Cats eventually get used to scarers that emit sound constantly.

The horse chestnuts in our gardens have gone brown already. Is this the result of the earlier flooding and will the trees survive? Robert Freedman, Banbury

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