Blooms like Prunus mume Beni-chidori line bare branches in early spring
Credit: Marianne Majerus
A quick-off-the blocks and out-in-front approach to choosing plant varieties – selecting those specifically developed to flower earlier than the majority of their kind – works with many plants.
Take daffodils. Easy-to-find ‘February Gold’ was named almost 100 years ago and, such has our climate changed, with me it now often flowers in January. Likewise ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’.
There are snowdrop varieties, as more and more people are aware, that flower in succession from autumn to spring but snowdrops have been the victims of severe price inflation. To have some in flower ahead of the late winter rush we need to balance suitability with value. November-flowering