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

I planted out 30 parrot tulips last month. They cost a fortune. This morning I found them scattered across my lawn with bits nibbled out of them. What is this and what can I do about it, please? Les Hardy

Ah yes, this is the work of squirrels, Beelzebub’s infernal offspring, on their mission to rid the world of goodness and beauty. They are clever, destructive and so ‘cute’ that the Hard Of Thinking feed them extravagant treats in parks the length and breadth of the UK. Having feasted on morsels of freshly-prepared sushi washed down with a little Pouilly-Fuissé, squirrels move onto your garden. Sated and yet somehow still able to leap over fences and trees they burn off unwanted calories by digging up prize bulbs, taking a nibble out of them and flinging them about the lawn in gay abandon. The miscreants should be eaten as my noble Lord Inglewood remarked in Parliament in a brave attempt to have squirrel added to the school dinner menu news.bbc.co.uk/. I am sad to say that I have never been able to eat squirrel because I have never been able to catch one but, if you manage to, here are some recipes www.bowhunting.net. And here is a site where you can buy squirrel traps www.trapman.co.uk; plus information about despatching the creatures www.defra.gov.uk.

Finally just in case you are beginning to feel sorry for grey squirrels (imported to Kew of all places from North America in the early nineteenth century since when they have decimated the UK’s red squirrel population) here is a BBC report about a pack of black squirrel killing a dog news.bbc.co.uk . Yes, a dog.

I have an agapanthus which has flowered non-stop since April. It is now turning to seed and I would like to try and grow some more plants from the seed. How should I go about doing this and is now the right time? Carroll Powell

You can sow them now or leave it till spring. Either way you should so the seed under glass preferably in temperatures around 15C (60F). They can takes ages to germinate – months sometimes – and they need to be given frost protection for their first winter. They do not like much disturbance particularly at the seedling stage and so some gardeners sow thinly and leaving potting on for as long as possible.

It’s great that you want to try growing from seed but have you thought about division which will give you similar plants to the ones that you have enjoyed this year rather than plants which may or may not flower as well and in the same colour? Division(cutting the rootball into two) is quicker and easier than sowing seed although the roots of pot-bound specimens sometimes need a pruning saw.

Newspaper in compost heap become wedges of yellow slime. Help! Joan McMann

If you jam whole newspaper in the compost this is what will happen. You have to crumple it up into balls and mix it in with plenty of green compost.

Buddleia has taken root in my roof. It’s just over a metre high and it is growing where the tiles meet a brick parapet. Are the roots long and how can I get it out without harming the roof? Cyn St John

With patience. You will have to kill the plant with glyphosate – this may take two or three applications given the lamentable strength of the herbicide available to the public (thank you EU) and then leave the plant to die and dry out. Only then try easing it out. The roots may still bring mortar, bricks and the odd attic with them but the damage will not be as great as if you rip out the living plant.

We have two chestnuts both infected with leaf miner. Is it true that I can stop reinfection next year by burning the leaves? Pip Smith, London

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