Poor winter garden!

Like the rest of Britain we have had our share of rain, but we haven't been flooded nor did we have power cuts, so we were blessed.

But our garden has taken a bit of a beating and it upsets me to see it like this.

But these are the 'before' pics and soon I hope there will be the 'after' pics!

  Being here in Essex on clay, our lawn is still water logged and squelches when you walk on it.

So we don't

Although the flower beds have old perennial flowers now well past their best with greying stems and yellow leaves, we still have some colour with the tete a tete daffs and some polyanthus.

Our veg patch is bare, but our herbs have survived and so have the pots.

 But look at this Christmas rose,  (hellebore) it has been flowering since before Christmas. A present from a teaching colleague back in 2002. It has grown and spread and is wonderful to have when the rest of the garden looks grey.

So it is all too wet to start gardening, knowing me I would get stuck in clay and fall over..
But I have cleaned the patio and sorted out the pelargoniums and fuchsias in the green house.
They all look good having had a trim back, the compost in the pots topped up and fed.. so now I am expecting them to do their best and flower their little cotton socks off.

This morning we are off to a garden centre, one of those that I think of is like a gin palace , although I have never been in one. This garden centre looks like and smells like what I think a gin palace would be.. carpeted, lights, scented candles, shining glass, trinkets and grandeur all around.
They make a good coffee so I am looking forward to the whole experience and I will be buying some plugs of those plants I don't grow from seed.
I am hoping that our garden will be tidy and weeded by the end of March, so come on Mr Sun do your best and dry us out!
Happy Days to all..