First Garden Snowdrop of 2026

 There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist, except an old optimist - Mark Twain

Start of a new year and time to record the first open snowdrop flower. See here for last year's report and links to previous years.

I first noticed the snowdrop flowers had opened on 19th January (Photo 1) ...

Photo 1: Garden Snowdrops on 19th January 2026

... though the flowers were out and partially open on the 12th January (Photo 2) ...

Photo 2: Garden Snowdrops on 12th January 2026

According to the Woodland Trust's Nature Calendar, the time to record the first flowering date is when the petals have opened just enough to see inside the flower. This clearly was the case on January 12th (Photo 2) but it may have been a few days earlier.

For the past five years, the snowdrop 'first flowering' date has been fairly consistent (from the 12th to 14th day of the year) except for 2024 (Figure 1). What was so special about the 2024 event?

Figure 1: Day Number of the Year for First Flowering of Garden Snowdrops

Of course, the species/cultivar, soil-type and location (local and geographical) will be factors as to when the first flower opens. These factors are constant for this particular patch of snowdrops. Temperature is considered the primary driver controlling how early the snowdrop opens. Moisture (enough but not too much or too little) might be important, especially in autumn, during the root development stage.

I checked past weather data collected from my Davis Weather Station located just a few metres from the snowdrop patch. Autumn 2023 was warm with sufficient rain (i.e not drought or flood) to encourage root development. September 2023 is the warmest September in our garden since records began in 2019. Perhaps more importantly, December 2023 was also the warmest December on record (Figure 2) and would have stimulated the early appearance of snowdrop flowers in January 2024.

Figure 2: Average Monthly Winter Temperatures

Note: in Figure 2, Winter is defined as December, January and February and the three months are contiguous; i.e. December 2023, January 2024 & February 2024 are part of the same 'winter' set for 2024

Summarizing, a warm December (mean 8 ℃) is conducive to early January flowering of our garden snowdrops. Cooler temperatures in December (4 - 7 ℃) lead to flowering times in the middle of January (12th to 14th). All these dates are much earlier than the UK average (2001 - 2020) of January 26th.

And, yes, I've added this year's first flowering to Nature's Calendar.

Photo 3: Raindrops on Snowdrops (19/1/26)