Extremely mild weather for the time of year is being credited for the early arrival of the spring bloom-which has wider implications for local flower lovers.
Sybelle Reay, of Eaglesfield, discovered her first in-bloom daffodil at Redkirk, near Rigg, on Saturday, but said: “The daffodil had been out a few days, by then – ie in December.
“I thought that this was unusual that a daffodil had bloomed so early in the year.”
Willie McLauchlan, of florists Flowerstalk in Annan High Street, notes a wider impact on flowers created by the mild, wet weather.
He said: “People are seeing plants in their own gardens showing signs much earlier than they normally would do, and it’s purely down to the very mild weather we’ve had so far.
“In actual fact, I have a pot at the side of my house, and it has agapanthus in it, which is an African lily, and they normally wouldn’t make much of an appearance before May, and they flower in the mid-summer months, but this thing’s made about an inch of growth already.”
Also noting he also has roses blooming in his garden, Willie added: “The snag with it all is that if we get a very cold spring or a bad snap in February it’ll knock all the stuff back.
“Some things will be damaged by the frost. Other things like spring bulbs, it’ll just slow them down a little bit.”
Explaining that plants are being fooled into life by the mild weather, Willie says that no one yet knows what impact the early blooming will have.
He said: “All these plants should really be in their dormant resting stage, and they’re clearly not, so whether the quality of the blooms on them this year will be as good remains to be seen.
“If they haven’t rested they may be weaker or smaller -we’ll just have to wait and see.”
