A number of British gardeners have expressed surprise and concern after spotting a highly unusual phenomenon for this time of year. One of those is George Cook, who took to TikTok to share the scene from his own patch, where daffodils and pink perennials were already in full bloom in the winter sun by December 20. “This isn’t normal,” he declared in a video.
According to the Royal Horticultural Society, daffodils spend several months developing roots before the flowers burst forth, usually between February and May. However, with a mild December so far, it appears the spring flower has been coaxed from the soil early to thrive in average temperatures of between seven and 10 degrees.
A second gardening enthusiast took to TikTok on the same day while decorating for Christmas and admitted her surprise at spotting daffodils emerging too. “I’m putting some Christmas lights out in my garden and let me show you what I have just found,” said Rach in her clip. “This is crazy.”
She then zoomed in on a planter in front of her house. “The daffodils are up – I’m sure it’s normally late January you start to see these,” she continued. “I’m not complaining, but I just hope they last until spring.”
Rach also highlighted that her trees had already began to bud. “We have had such a mild winter and the weather is thinking that spring has sprung early,” she closed. “I have never seen daffodils up this early before.”
George’s video prompted scores of TikTok users to express concerns over climate change. One responded: “How anyone can see daffodils bloom in the middle of winter and deny climate change, is beyond me. It’s like looking out the window, seeing a hurricane, and saying to yourself ‘I’m fine, this is fine, I’m sure it won’t kill me’.”
A second person added: “I saw a bumblebee happily flying around on Thursday. Like you say, this isn’t normal.” A third shared: “My petunias are still blooming and I had strawberries till the end of last month, it’s 100 per cent definitely the warmest winter we’ve ever had.”
While a fourth TikTok user said: “I’m a full-time gardener and it has been a struggle this autumn/winter to see what is happening every single day before my eyes, the bulbs, the buds, the bees, the butterflies. It’s lovely but it’s not normal. It is so, so sad.”
According to a recent study by Cambridge University, climate change is causing plants in the UK to flower a month earlier on average when compared to previous decades and centuries. Using a citizen science database with records going back to the mid-18th century, a research team found that the effects of climate change are causing plants in the UK to flower one month earlier under recent global warming.
The study stated: “The researchers based their analysis on more than 400,000 observations of 406 plant species from Nature’s Calendar, maintained by the Woodland Trust, and collated the first flowering dates with instrumental temperature measurements.
They found that the average first flowering date from 1987 to 2019 is a full month earlier than the average first flowering date from 1753 to 1986. The same period coincides with accelerating global warming caused by human activities.
It continued: “While the first spring flowers are always a welcome sight, this earlier flowering can have consequences for the UK’s ecosystems and agriculture. Other species that synchronise their migration or hibernation can be left without the flowers and plants they rely on – a phenomenon known as ecological mismatch – which can lead to biodiversity loss if populations cannot adapt quickly enough.”
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