I know it is always exciting seeing new growth but you gotta think that there will be snow and cold between now and April and I am not sure how that will impact this too soon to appear growth.

It should be okay with daffodils as long as the plant isn't so advanced that it's budding. The sprouts can handle the cold.

(Besides, I am convinced we're not going to get ANY MORE SNOW this winter! :-) Seriously, aside from a freakish October storm, the only snow we've had all season has come in storms of 2" or 3". Some winters by now we've had 100"!)

I wouldn't worry. I have had Spring Dawn daffodils in bloom for about 3 weeks now and was a bit concerned when we got a spell of incredibly cold weather last week. The temps went down to around 14f at night which is extremely rare here. The daffs bowed right down to the ground and the flowers were actually frozen and crisp to the touch. Today the temp is around 50f and you would never know to look at the daffodils that it had ever been cold at all. I am impressed by their resilience.

So if for example one has daffodils blooming extra early...this doesn't make for a longer overall duration of bloom...right...just starting earlier?

Hmm, not sure! I've never had them start so early. But, I assume they are "programmed" to bloom for a certain period of time, although I don't know how the weather plays into that... if the temps are warm enough to bloom, but then stay early spring-like (rather than heading into summer warmth) would they continue to bloom a bit longer than the typical duration? Doubt it but some expert could chime in here.

It's good to know that even the flowers can take extreme temps.

The flowers last longer if the temperatures stay coolish and there is not too much wind and rain. You can see exactly this effect if you compare blooming period between bulbs grown for indoor display and those grown outdoors. Inside it is too hot and dry for them and they wither quickly.

I've got crocuses blooming in my southeast michigan garden.. been blooming for nearly a week already.

i'm just waiting for winter to catch-up to the calendar

~Chills

Ditto. Early crocuses have been blooming for a week, but my daffodils are
showing far more than green leaf tips - the BUDS are fully 6" above ground!
The soil has never actually frozen solid this winter and I've been able to get
a jump on all kinds of garden projects this year. . .all of which leads me to
suspect we'll get slammed with a blizzard around Easter. . .ah, well, you
can't argue with Mother Nature. . .

Carl

I was just out snooping around in my garden in Hamilton Ontario(zone 5A?) and I have a lot of various plants showing growth. I have daffodils like most of you have but I also have some significant growth on my foxglove plants as well. even one that I was concered wouldn't make it throught the winter.

it frustrates me because I love to see it but I realize that there is atleast 6 weeks before we can really say we are out of the woods for any really nasty cold. Having said that most people in the weather worl are thinking that a seriosuly early spring is on the way. In somre ways I feel like its already here. I think we are having moe warms days vs cold days.

I have snowdrops blooming here, but no crocuses yet. Some narcissus are poking through the soil, but they would do that anyway under the snow (if we had snow). Hardly any snow all winter this year. I'm not complaining, but I'm curious as to how it might affect the various plants and bloom times, etc.

ontnative wrote:

Hardly any snow all winter this year. I'm not complaining, but I'm curious as to how it might affect the various plants

Although we haven't had much snow this winter, in terms of overall precipitation has there not been 'offsetting' extra rain in the fall and winter?

For example last summer in my area it was very dry but the trees did not seem to suffer as we had so much rain all that previous spring which I think helped.