Nature bewildered: Flowers like daffodils and snowdrops 'think it is already spring' due to warmer weather as petals begin bursting out weeks earlier than normal

​Jules Hardy of Esker Farm Daffodils, located just outside Dromore in south Tyrone, was speaking after the Met Office revealed on Tuesday that 2023 had been the warmest year for Northern Ireland since records began in the 1880s, and the third wettest.

The figures for December paint a particularly out-of-the-ordinary picture: an average temperature of 6.5°C, which was 1.8°C higher than the typical figure for the preceding 30 years, and with 40% more rainfall.

Peering deeper into the data also reveals that the average daily low during December stood at a relatively balmy 4.2°C – some 2.3°C warmer than normal.

The picture has been much the same elsewhere, and social media across the UK and Ireland is awash with images of early-flowering daffodils, crocuses, and snowdrops.

"Daffodils, snowdrops, everything really is about three weeks ahead of what they normally would be,” said Mrs Hardy.

"Snowdrops have already flowered and are finished! We don't have any daffodils in our fields as yet, but definitely growth is at least three weeks ahead...

"The stems are up, and there are some varieties not far off the bud showing.

"It really is a very mixed-up season. Because it's been so mild, everything thinks its already spring.”

She added that some bulbs were already beginning to shoot when they were being planted in early December.

"It's a first for us,” she said.

“This is definitely unprecedented from talking to people who have been in the business 30, 40, 50 years.

"They have never seen bulbs opening up as early as they have been.”

Among the potential problems are that if flowers (or new growth on trees) appear prematurely, they are vulnerable to being stricken if frost does eventually appear.

And with it being so warm and damp, flowers can be susceptible to fast-spreading infections like botrytis.

In addition, it is likely to throw the horticultural calendar into disarray, with flowers emerging and then wilting before the scheduled shows and competitions take place.

"You're going to end up with shows with very little on the benches because nobody has flowers to show,” said Mrs Hardy.

​Robin Mercer BEM, who runs Hillmount Garden Centre in the Castlereagh hills to the south-east of Belfast, said the warm and wet conditions are likely to spell headaches for gardeners.

He agreed with Jules Hardy that tulips, crocuses and daffodils are "sprouting up far quicker than they normally do", adding that “it's totally uncalled for – it's not normal at all”.

Among the problems which the lack of frost is storing up is a glut of unwelcome bugs, while the soggy ground is causing rot to set in.

“In all the years it's been the wettest ever, and business-wise we'll suffer a bit because of that,” he said.

"We're dependent on people sitting out in their patios and enjoying their gardens, looking around them, and thinking 'I could do this that and the other'.

"A lot of plants have suffered because the ground is so wet. It's rotting the roots.

"And all the bugs – it takes the frost to get rid of a lot of those too, whereas if you have a mild spell the leatherjackets [the larvae of craneflies] and all sorts of insects are breeding away.

"Even just ordinary greenflies – they're busy breeding away whereas normally with a cold spell of weather they're dormant again.

"We've our business going for a third generation and I've been in it 40, 50 years, and I'd say it's probably been the warmest it's ever been.”

Some people online had remarked with surprise upon the flowering of gorse bushes, however Mr Mercer said this has become relatively normal.

Whilst “20 or 30 years ago” such flowering would have been expected by Easter, “it seems to be on the go nearly all year round now”.

Meanwhile Professor Mick Crawley of Imperial College London told the News Letter that some of the “early” daffodils which are sparking people’s amazement online are in fact a very specific type called Rijnveld's Early Sensation, which typically starts to flower between Christmas Day and New Years Day, “varying remarkably little from year to year”.

The professor (who holds the post of daffodil recorder for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland) said whilst there is “very convincing evidence for climate warming” affecting spring-flowering species, sometimes people’s surprise is misplaced because they have misidentified winter-flowering types for later ones.