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

Our small balcony (roughly 3mX2m) faces south but it gets some noise from a nearby road. It is open on two sides so privacy is not a problem because we are not overlooked. We want to make somewhere to sit out in the evenings next year and would like a way to screen the noise. Roy Harding

Add noise to obliterate the noise. Odd but it works. Add a small, wall-mounted water feature which makes a splashing noise. It could be a spouting mask, for instance, using circulating water thus making installation straight forward so long as you have an outdoor source of electricity. The only other solution would be to glaze the balcony. This is expensive – toughened glass costs a lot and so does installation – and would cut you off from the fresh air.

I come from New Zealand where we grew a delicious fruit called Feijoas. Are they available in this country and will they survive? Dee Robertson via email

If you live in a warm area with free-draining soil you may be able to grow Feijoa or Pineapple guava outside but it will have to be sown indoors. The following nursery has seed http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/page5c.htm and this one has plants http://www.embleysnurseries.co.uk/ .

I would like to plant a hornbeam tree like those mentioned by Philip Pullman in his Dark Materials trilogy. Is there more than one type? Wanda Ullman via email

I always think of Pullman’s ‘Will’ disappearing into another world when I drive through Oxford, where Pullman lives, on the A40. A line of hornbeams stands beside some hum drum suburban houses and always makes me think about the beginning of the trilogy. These trees are Carpinus betulus Fastigiata. They are well behaved and easy to grow.

I noticed today along the motorway how some deciduous trees where making a subtle screen of reds and yellows which didn’t seem to clash. I couldn’t make out what the trees were but want to do the same in the bottom of our garden (just under an acre). I’d like to keep the interest through the year. Carrie Kirk via email

They are most likely to include the good old field maple the red/brown Acer campestre and Prunus avium which makes orange and gold.

Is there such a thing as a swinging seat which does not look like the suburban stripy things my parents had? Paul via email

How about this confection? I bet your parents didn’t have anything like it. All the same it’s an odd time of year to be thinking about garden seating! http://www.nirvanachairs.com/webpages2/The%20Nirvana%20Chair.htm

Halloween has inspired me to make a frightening garden, being bored with the oh-so-pretty garden than dominate this country. Have you some suggestions please? Name and address withheld

Pseudopanax crassifolius looks a bit like a heap of bones, Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Rhus are devil-ish red at this time of year, pumpkins can be cut into masks and you could add lots of thorny stuff like brambles and holly. Finally, how about an Aeolian harp for good measure? This musical instrument is wind activated and makes a creepy, howling noise.

My husband added some unsightly red/black cannas to our border ‘because it never has late colour’. I pointed out that red/black is hardly a charming addition but he says that they are staying and that he will notice if I try to kill them. How can I soften their hard-bitten forms? Name and address withheld

Brightly coloured dahlias plus massed Salvia uliginosa and Verbena bonariensis in front of the offending plants on the grounds that a screen of tall, feathery plants at the front of the border highlights the rest of the border. It doesn’t but it is a fashionable notion which may convince him and, if he doesn’t believe this type of planting exists, whistle him down to the borders on the east side of Regents Park in London which have just such a planting.

Why are orange shop-bought Halloween pumpkins so nasty to eat and are there any that make good lanterns and good eating for next year? I would like to grow them. C Burridge via email

Shop-bought pumpkins are fine although some may be a little under-ripe and therefore need longer cooking to bring out the flavour. I chop mine in half, scoop out the seeds, smear butter all over the flesh, add salt, pepper and a small amount of sugar and bake the pumpkin, one half at a time, in a medium oven until the flesh is soft. Meanwhile I wash the seeds, chuck them on a backing tray with some oil and salt and roast them until they begin to brown. For next year you could try following the seed company DT Brown’s http://www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk/acatalog/6_pumpkins.html suggestion of growing a new ‘Baby Pan’ which they rate as having the best flavour of all their pumpkins or ‘Lumpy’ or the early cropping ‘Sunburst’

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

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