The cold winter has delayed the flowering of spring plants by up to a month, according to a count of blooms in National Trust gardens.The chilly weather has bucked the trend seen in recent years of warmer, wetter winters which usually result in plants blooming earlier.
Experts predict the delay will lead to plants all flowering at once, heralding spring's arrival in a riot of color.
According to spring watchers at the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society a later blooming than usual will mean a simultaneous flowering of all our wealth of daffs, hyacinths, narcissi, camellias and primroses. Even now the green probes of the daffodils are rising, the spear tips of an army just below the icy horizon.
Anglesey Abbey's flower count found 217 different plants in bloom, including 180 of the 240 snowdrop varieties the garden contains.
Excluding Anglesey's huge snowdrop collection, the highest number of flowers recorded was at Killerton in Devon, where 172 varieties were in bloom, up from 85 last year.
Overall there was a 7.5% decrease in the numbers recorded in Devon and Cornwall compared with 2009.
