Racing towards spring: Early flowering is welcome, but surprising, as gardens continue the Storm Goretti clean-up

In early January, Storm Goretti tore through the south-west, particularly Cornwall, causing extensive damage including toppling and damaging many thousands of trees at National Trust gardens and estates. The recovery effort continues, including making areas safe, assessing the impacts on plant collections, planning clearance work and reusing fallen timber wherever possible.

But just over six weeks after the devastating storm, welcome splashes of significantly early colour are appearing as the clean-up continues.

The unseasonally mild day and night temperatures – London reached 18.7 °C on Wednesday, twice the typical average for late February – are likely prompting the race toward spring, and the mild days are forecast to continue into next week.

At Buckland Abbey in Devon, the Magnolia x soulangeana (saucer magnolia) – one of various veteran magnolias in the grounds – is producing its large, goblet-shaped blooms some four weeks earlier than usual.

Many camellias are also well ahead of schedule, including ‘Saint Ewe’, ‘Donation’, ‘Mars’, ‘Apollo’ and 'Nobilissima'.

Head Gardener Dave Bouch said: “Camellias are in full bloom that you wouldn’t expect to see for three to four weeks. They’re looking absolutely brilliant.

“Primroses are in full flower, a week or two early, and even bluebells are starting to send up flower stems, around a month earlier than expected. Things are growing and flowering at quite an alarming rate!”

Above average temperatures are likely to be behind the surprise displays.

Dave continued: “We’ve seen mild overnight temperatures of almost double digits, helped by heavy cloud. A late frost could do damage but there’s no sign of that on the horizon.

“Traditionally spring is typically short in terms of the blooming season. But if the temperatures cool, we’ll see prolonged displays of up to three months, with camellias and daffodils likely to flower longer.”

Lanhydrock, near Bodmin, has also seen an early start from some plants in its late Victorian formal garden.

Head Gardener Olly Harper said: “The magnolias are behind, but everything else is early, such as the camellias and rhododendrons which are flowering well. Storm damage aside, I think the mild winter and rain have been really good for them. Visitors can expect good colour when we reopen for the year on Sunday.”

At Knightshayes, near Tiverton in Devon, most of the camellias are flowering, the magnolias are in bud and bluebell flower spikes are already ‘sneaking out’.

Senior Gardener John Ridgley says plants have been coming into growth or flower earlier for many years.

“This trend has been happening for quite some time now, but the effects of the previous summer combined with the following winter period seem to accentuate it. As we have just experienced, last year’s warm, dry summer followed by a prolonged wet, mild winter seems to confuse some plants into either early flowering or very little flowers at all.”

He continued: “Our snowdrops were actively in growth long before Christmas and while we would always expect to see a few from around that time, we also had some peeking through from the beginning of December.

“The same is true of the very early daffodils - some blooms can appear on or around Christmas, but I think I saw the first bud in the last few days of November.”

Adam Carveth, Head Gardener for Trelissick, Glendurgan and Trerice in Cornwall, shares a similar picture.

“We’ve had camellias out a month early - ‘Winton’ flowered almost two months early and scented Camellia transnokoensis started flowering for us at the beginning of December and has barely stopped at Trelissick and Glendurgan.

“Particularly surprising has been the flowering of Buddleja macrostachya (large-spiked butterfly bush) which would be expected to flower from July.

“I think it is a combination of varying factors, but most likely is that the constant rain with mild temperatures is coaxing the blooms out.

“If we go straight into a dry, warm period then things will go over quickly, but in the current climate, there are a lot of unknowns.”

The pace of spring isn’t just being felt in the south-west. At Dyffryn, near Cardiff, delicate apricot blossoms are appearing in the Walled Garden, one to two weeks early. Head Gardener Chris Flynn says he doesn’t recall seeing them in February before.

Numerous trees and bulbs are flowering at least two weeks early at Mottisfont in Hampshire – Magnolia x soulangeana (typically in full flower the last week of March), Prunus cerasifera (usually mid-March) and Chionodoxa along the lime walk (last year, flowering was the third week of March). And at Hinton Ampner near Alresford, Daphne, Magnolia, Japanese quince and camellias are all starting to bloom about 2-3 weeks early, responding to the mild winter and lack of frost.

The National Trust’s Head of Gardens and Parks, Sheila Das, said: “There’s always natural variance in plant growth and flowering. But powerful winter storms, soon followed by temperatures you’d expect to see in early summer, underline the extremes and variability that are becoming the new normal.

“In our gardens, this means we need to observe and adapt, nurture the health of our soil and select plants thoughtfully, growing things that will cope with the conditions rather than struggling against them.”