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

This year my parents are coming from Yorkshire to go to the Chelsea Flower Show on Tuesday. They plan to stay for the week. What other garden outings can I arrange for them? They are active and committed gardeners. Rosie Watts, London

The National Gardens Scheme charity, which opens gardens to raise money for charity, is running garden tours on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Chelsea week but you will need to book fast for any hope of getting places www.ngs.org.uk. Failing that there are plenty of good gardens in London – and the London parks look beautiful in May. Get copies of the Good Gardens Guide and the NGS’ Yellow Book (there’s a yellow pamphlet for London garden exclusively) for inspiration. All three can be found in bookshops on or off line.

We have just installed a wildlife pond made from liner – it’s about six foot by four and eighteen inches deep at most. We plan to add bulrushes, water iris, water mint, water lilies and plenty more plants to give shelter and food to wildlife. Now my husband, who has the design sense of a pickled herring, says he wants to put goldfish in the pond. I think they will look naff. How can I dissuade him please, Jane? He is digging his heels in. So am I. Name and address withheld

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Diarmuid Gavin plays it safe at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

Horticultural revolutionary Diarmuid Gavin is nothing if not controversial. But for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, he seems to be hedging his bets

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This is not an especially deep pond and goldfish, let alone pickled herring, will increase the nutrient content of the water significantly and therefore encourage algae. If that argument doesn’t dissuade him here are some more:

i) goldfish will eat frog and newt spawn. Unlike goldfish, frogs and newts are native and will help you fight garden pests.

ii) I have seen a goldfish being eaten, alive, by a dragonfly nymph. Any self-respecting wildlife pool should include dragonflies – does he really want to put his beloved goldfish through such suffering?

Finally, if he is being very stubborn, how about buying him a fish tank stocked with goldfish - on condition the goldfish never materialise in the pond.

Last autumn I started a compost bin (quite large and free from the council). It is now home to a plague of what are definitely whitefly which I am attempting to control with the modern version of flypaper. I compost fruit and veg waste/peelings, garden snippings and rough cardboard. Am I worrying about the whitefly unnecessarily? My climbing rose usually suffers annually, which I spray, but I don't want to add to its, or my veg plot adjoining the bin, problems. Hope you can help. Judy Cranage, Blackpool.

The yellow fly paper solution is one of the best although you could push the boat out and buy a population of the predator wasp Encarsia if you are convinced these are whitefly and the temperature around the bin is OK for the wasps. It’s also worth putting a layer of soil, or several layers of newspapers, over the top of the compost every time you add fruit and vegetables to the heap.

I am planning to make an amphitheatre effect in my lawn (it is already the right shape) by adding very shallow, curving terraces (about 10 cm deep). I would like a tough edging for each layer to define the shape of each terrace. I plan to make five, each curve about 7 metres. What can I use as the edging? I would like something like steel to give a shiny, modernist look. Is it possible to buy suitable strips? Harry Wright, Petersfield

You can buy ready-made edging www.everedge.co.uk which has spikes at regular intervals to keep the terraces in place. However, this has a dark grey plastic coating. If you need a shiny surface you will probably have to have the edging custom made. Go to your local builders’ merchants and blacksmiths to get a good price – prices for this kind of work vary hugely.

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