Recent events have made my spirits flag again and there have been enough other things going on for some time to make me feel it would be nice to be braindead for a change... So I constantly need to find a way and look out for positives to improve my mood. Guess I'm not the only one.  Fortunately for gardeners and plant lovers, ours is one of the best passions to help do just that.

There is a reason that garden therapy is so successful. Apart from plants not judging you and a few other benefits, it's the reassuring aspect of  time: you can't rush a plant into growing. You need time to really learn about gardening and plants. And whatever way the world goes (safe the total apocalypse perhaps) spring will follow winter, bringing rebirth and a new beginning. It's this reassuring cycle of life played out in a sort of time-lapse before our eyes (at least compared to our own life cycles) I believe, that gives us hope. Also, you can see that in most cases your love and attention pays back, you can make a difference in your garden. And one of the best aspects - at least from a harassed mother's point of view - plants don't talk back at you! (Well, just saying...)

Over the past two years I've mention a few of the things that - aside from actual pottering around in the garden - help lift my spirits in times of need. Like going to Kew or coming across a positive local initiative. But there are more mundane ways, of course, easier to incorporate into everyday life. Right now, I get a lot of pleasure out of the simple fact that bumblebees have chosen to nest in my little garden this year - something you can't force nor even do much to encourage, apparently. One of my recent reads has been No Nettles Required - The Truth about Wildlife Gardening by Ken Thompson whose wonderful book The Sceptical Gardener I've reviewed here before.

No Nettles Required was first published in 2006 and is the result of an in-depth study of wildlife in urban gardens (Sheffield gardens, to be precise) Thompson and his colleagues undertook. The primary aim of that study was to find out what gardens where best suited to encourage wildlife - backed by scientific evidence rather than common lore and long-held traditional wisdom. It's a very interesting read indeed which I can wholeheartedly recommend. But to come back to the bumblebees: Having tried in various ways - like providing nest  boxes designed specifically for them - to encourage bumblebees to nest in the wide range of gardens taking part in the study, Thompson's conclusion was this:

Well, my garden is flat and I've not even provided any extra encouragement apart from stuffing it to the rafters with plants and trying to keep a shallow bowl of water topped up. Yet here they are, nesting somewhere in a hole at the bottom of the boundary wall or the ivy growing on it. And I feel incredibly lucky and happy about it. Even my kids are excited to see the huge bumblebee queen and the smaller worker bumblebees disappear and re-emerge. And quite an impressive sight it is - every time anew boggling our minds that such an "non-aerodynamic bee-ing" can fly. As the saying goes: "According to science the bumblebee should not be able to even lift off - luckily it hasn't read the textbook..."

Another source of joy, mental diversion and optimism is the birds again. Whilst Mrs Wren has not to deigned to grace the nest Mr Wren built in our garden with her eggs (male wrens build several and the female then chooses) we've seen him recently doing improvements, perhaps with a view to a second brood. But for weeks now we've regularly seen a family of tits, the chicks staying with us and creating an enormous racket every time the adults appear, and last night for the first time this year we've seen a fledgling blackbird again. Daddy blackbird is now as curious and almost tame as any Red Robin I've seen. 

Yes, I do talk to "our" birds. And I don't mind embarrassing myself by admitting it. Because you know what? That male blackbird now comes to briefly sit less than a metre from me whilst I sit outside typing, eyeing me and listening after I called him over from the fence. And soppy as this may be, it certainly lifts my mood that a wild animal, i.e. not a pet, chooses to be that friendly.

Finally - and here we return to the plants and to something even those without their own outdoor space can enjoy - when going about my everyday life I always keep my eyes open for other people's plantings. Whether it is front gardens, roundabouts, kerbside weeds (okay, that wouldn't usually count as "other people's plantings") or plants in windows and on doorsteps. Most days you can find something that delights or at least surprises and encourages.

Just yesterday, I delighted in a small piece of planting in what you could call the front garden of a church on Kingsland Road (London). I had walked past it several times over the past months but never really noticed. On Monday, the flowers of a white delphinium caught my eye in passing and made me stop and turn and have a better look. And suddenly I found this bed with a lovely combination of plants in green and white, mainly for dappled shade. It is exactly the style of planting I would most want for my own garden and hence it put a smile on my face.

Only a few minutes before, I'd enjoyed two shop windows transformed into an indoor oasis by filling it with houseplants, as is so on trend right now. Neither, of course, was a florist's: one was a hairdresser's window, the other I'm not sure about - I only saw it across the road - but probably some kind of watering hole. And, on top of the "usual planting" of the area (i.e. the greenery and "flowerery" I already knew), I also noticed the planting on a lone balcony at a housing estate. Nothing remarkable, really - but it still stood out amidst all the empty others.

So here's my advice: keep your eyes peeled for the little everyday pleasures and signs of hope and beauty - they exist almost everywhere. Hardly revolutionary advice, I know, but when everything looks glum we tend to forget. If you make an effort to look out for them and actually want to lift your mood though, these things can definitely give you a boost. For me at least, they rarely fail to deliver. I hope they do the trick for you, too.

We’ve had some surprisingly mild and sunny days recently. So I jumped at the chance of working outside while it was actually pleasant to do so. An acquaintance of mine runs an East London pub with a lovely beer garden. Even many local mums go there with their little ones in summer – just to have lunch. Whilst they eat, their babies crawl around on picnic blankets spread on the patch of grass and toddlers inspect bumble bees that alight on the herbs and flowers in the adjoining beds and planters. It wasn’t always thus: just a couple of years ago this spot was a carpark.  When my acquaintance took it on, he converted the stretch of tarmac into the garden it is now.

For a while, I used to work there a day a week - looking after and "developing" the planting. This year, he had asked whether I could come again for a spring "deep-clean". So these mild days were the perfect opportunity to do so. Turns out the garden hasn't been touched since last September. At least that's what I've been told. They must have done something though, as the patch of grass was reasonably short. But the beds and planters were covered in a thick layer of last year's leaves, not to mention the debris that comes with any piece of land bordering a busy thoroughfare: stray plastic bags, empty cigarette packets, sodden bits of paper and a rainbow of sweet wrappers. Nothing was cut back either.

Well, it never ceases to amaze me what a difference to a garden a mere clean-up makes. Not the rip-out-brambles-by-the-tractor-load-and-get-rid-of-the-dumped-TV-sets-and-fridges kind of clean-ups. Just a normal clearing away of dead plant matter, some cutting back...
Thanks to inventions like the vacuum cleaner, the traditional ritual of "spring-cleaning" does not make much of a difference anymore to most homes. You can now keep dirt at bay in winter, too. Spring-cleaning indoors these days often is more a clear out, a matter of getting rid of unnecessary or unwanted stuff. Or giving an outlet to that urge to start afresh - like nature does around you - by redecorating your interiors. But outside, spring-cleaning still has meaning.

Of course, most gardeners will have done a lot of tidying up in autumn already. Even those who love bold skeletons of plants to remain over winter, hoping to see them transformed by hoar frost or snow into something magical. But for many, myself included, there always is still a fair bit to be done before the garden gets going again in earnest.  And if you are lucky with the weather, there is little more satisfying than a few hours spent in this way. Yes, a fine autumn day of “putting the garden to bed” is similarly gratifying. But it lacks the rush of excitement: ahead are the long, dark and often dank days of winter.

                   The joys of spring-cleaning in the garden: time travels, amongst other things

In spring though, a new garden year is ahead of us - everything is full of promise, everything seems possible. And what a joy to find new growth stirring under those dead old leaves already. At the pub garden this week, I especially loved finding the pretty and plump new rosettes (not in a botanical sense!) of ice plants (Hylotelephium spectabile) and the developing new leaves of Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) and Geranium.

Using no tools but my hand to clear the narrow borders, I found myself transported back in time. Earth worms, curled-up wood lice, tiny slugs and - most importantly - the empty shells of garden snails. Oh what treasures! I've never lost the fascination with shells I felt as a child. Suddenly I was a three-year-old again, trailing after my parents as they in turn had spring-cleaned the first garden in my life. Like a robin or blackbird waiting for a tasty morsel, I followed their raking to discover all kinds of previously hidden delights. The pretty shells of the garden banded snail were a particular favourite. Since the soil in that first garden was similarly heavy as the London clay here, I'm sure unconsciously its smell must have helped my time travels.

Back on my own little plot, I was spurred into action recently by the birds. It was a grey, rather chilly and very blustery Sunday and I had looked forward to a day inside, curled up with a book if the children would let me. Given a chance, I much prefer being a "fair weather gardener"... From the window I watched our little Red Robin and to my delight discovered that he'd found a partner: beyond doubt, there were two of them! How wonderful, maybe they'd nest again in our garden! (They did for the first time last year.) I really ought to cut back the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) so I would not disturb them whilst they were nesting: our bird box is bang in the middle of its vines.

My eyes followed the robins as they pecked here and there, hopping between the plants and onto the flowerpots. Then to the birdfeeder. Then into the Pittosporum, our only "tree". Both feeder and Pittosporum are very close to the boundary wall which on this section is covered with ivy. Perhaps they'd raise their first brood there, I thought. Because well-hidden as the bird box is once the Virginia creeper has come into leaf, right now it lacks any protection - visual or otherwise. In fact, the bare branches of the creeper could serve as a ladder for any predator keen to reach the nest. And there has been a tabby from the neighbourhood around ours recently! A super-cute, most elegant little cat, still young, but a cat nonetheless.

But back to the robins. Sure enough, they started exploring the ivy. But no sooner had they begun to do so when all hell broke loose! An almighty clamour and scolding commenced. You could not see its source, but the distinct call betrayed it: a wren told the robins - in no uncertain terms, I guess - that it had been there first, that this was his territory. It made such a racket, the whole avian neighbourhood arrived. Like a crowd of people gathering when a brawl breaks out, all our usual birds came to see what was going on: first the great tits, quickly followed by the blue tits, then the blackbirds, then the doves. The robins stayed, too, of course, seemingly dumbstruck.

They all sat around and seemed to wonder what the matter had happened. They did not join in with an angry choir as they all would have if a cat or a jay was to be driven away. No, they just sat there, quietly and seemingly curious. Only the blackbird would sound a few gentle qwut-qwuts, as if to appease its angry neighbour. But the furious little wren was not to be calmed. With a decibel level you wouldn't think possible from this tiniest of birds it kept fuming, raging and complaining until finally, after several minutes, its mate arrived. That's when it occurred to me they might be breeding already.

Oh dear! The ivy definitely needed a trim. Not much, but a bit of a trim nonetheless. For otherwise it would - over the course of summer - swamp that precious bit of open soil right and left of our tree. Plants there, if not outright strangled, would receive neither light nor rain as  the ivy formed kind of an awning above them from the top of the wall. I had left it till now because I thought insects would appreciate the nectar from its flowers during the winter months. What to do? Quickly, albeit reluctantly, I got out of bed and dressed. The stepladder was grabbed and manoeuvred out of doors. Not into the garden though.

                   Cutting back the ivy was a family effort - now the birds may do as they please

Luckily, the most important bit to cut back was on the top of the wall hence I put the ladder up on the pavement, on the other, public side of it. This way, the wrens hopefully wouldn't see me and hence not be frightened. Plus, the paving made for a much firmer and securer stand than the soil. Then the rest of the family was roped in to help: my man obligingly sawed off the thickest branches, those I wouldn't manage with secateurs. (I had only asked for the saw but he wouldn't let me...) And the children were coaxed to stuff the chopped-off trails into a big bag. It was so blustery, any bits not caught and bagged immediately had to be hunted after down the road!

Whilst I was dangling over the wall to reach as far down as possible either side of the tree, I suddenly felt very wobbly indeed. My darling offspring, rather than hold the stepladder on top of which I stood almost on tiptoe, had decided to climb after me... Not the best idea, especially in high winds.

Anyway, we got the job done and without encouraging further wrath from the wren. And yes, I made sure I cut back everything else that needed it - like the Virginia creeper - on the day, too. From inside the garden. And whilst not what I had planned for the day, it felt good to get it done and over with. As an added perk, I was closely watched and nicely entertained by the robins. The children meanwhile decided to build a den elsewhere and pad it with the hacked-off ivy.
Though I regularly see a wren now, I still don't know whether they really are nesting in our garden. Obviously, I didn't go searching the ivy-clad wall. But even if not, at least I got the spring-cleaning done!