Lovely day here in Oxford, too, and forecast to continue all week - so, wouldn't you know it, it's when we're booked to go off to Fuerteventura for 9 days (Where they're talking about rain!). After pottering in the garden at home most of the day I dropped in at the allotment around 5pm, just to check everything was snug - in my foolhardy way I already have tender stuff in the greenhouses, and salads in high-level trays. And I was stunned to discover that dahlias are starting to show through!
I have around 2 dozen dahlia plants at the allotments, and my practice for the past several years has been to leave them in the ground over-winter, heavily mulched with whatever comes to hand. Last autumn it so happened that the council delivered us 3 big trailers-full of their park compost, and each of my dahlias had about a barrow-full tipped onto it. So the top of the mound of mulch would be around 10 inches higher than ground level..... And 5 or 6 of the mounds have small dahlia shoots showing through!
I'm flabbergasted. I'm guessing it must be to do with th very warm weather we had for most of February. Last year, after the Beast from the East, they didn't start showing through til late June, and I lost 6 or 7 of my favourites. Frost is forecast for the Oxford area tonight, but I shall have to be off for an early flight, so no opportunity to do anything about the situation, though I did wedge 5-litre water bottles with their bottoms cut off into the compost around the revealed shoots.
It's in the hands of the gods - I shall just have to try not to fret about it all while away, and be interested to find whatever I find when i return on Thursday 4 April. At least I won't now have to negotiate Brexit while I'm away....