Picture: hazel catkins. Click here for more February tree and shrub photos.
The tree flowering sequence gets going February, if it has not done so in late January. Hazel catkins can appear on isolated trees even early in January, but the main wave is not usually until the end of that month or early February. In 2010, 2016, 2017 and 2020 it was not until mid February.
Once out, these "lambs tails" bring a welcome splash of yellow to the countryside. They appear at this time of year to allow their pollen to spread through the air while there are no leaves on the trees. If you look closely you can also see the tiny red female flowers in the centre of the leaf buds: these will later become the hazelnuts.
Next in the sequence are alder catkins - easily recognisable because they are the only catkins to appear on trees bearing cones. The buds of the catkins have been on the tree all winter, 3-4cm long, and greenish, beige, brown, maroon or (rarely) pinkish. They now extend into long tassels of yellow flecked with brown (often looking gold from a distance). The timing of this varies quite a bit from tree to tree and you may see it in places from mid month. But it is often not till the last week - or even the first week of March in cold years - that it happens en masse.
An inconspicuous bit of tree flowering this month are the tiny golden balls on male yew trees, which for a short period in March, or sometimes at the end of February, produce clouds of pollen when touched (this is often synchronised, with all the yews in a particular area doing it at once). You may also see what look like clusters of unfolding needles, but these are in fact a gall parasitising the plant.
From mid month you may also see the start of the grey or white blobs that will be the male catkins of goat willow or sallow (commonly referred to as "pussy willows"). Red maple (a street tree) sometimes starts to put out its frizzy red flowers from the third week or so.
On other trees, buds become more prominent, turning their crisp winter outlines somewhat fuzzier. This shows that they are ready to put out new leaves or flowers, but this does not happen yet. For example, there can be budburst (the underlying colour of the male catkin or foliage showing through the bud) on hornbeam from quite early in the month while sycamore may have green oval buds.
In addition from mid month, though sometimes earlier, weeping willow may have green buds pressed to its stems, or even start to put forward both leaves and catkins, the latter adding a yellowy-green tinge to the tree when seen from a distance.
Elsewhere, last autumn's seeds are still in evidence. Cones remaining on alder are mentioned above. In addition ash trees still have some keys (seed bunches): some have fallen to the ground in January, and during February many of the rest may fall, but equally some (or quite a lot) may remain into March. The dark, nobbly growths that can be seen hanging down on some ashes when the seeds fall off are cauliflower galls, made by an insect.
One can also see a few winged seeds hanging from the twigs of lime, while some of last autumn's (open) nut cases are still on beech trees. London plane retains spherical seed cases from the previous year. There may just be a few surviving seeds on sycamore or field maple. Clumps of mistletoe are visible high up in the branches of trees: it grows mostly on poplar and lime, but sometimes on apple, maples and hawthorn.
Notice too the catkins buds (which have been there all winter) waiting to open on birch: it may also still have desiccated seed cylinders left over from last year, though most have fallen by now. On a few oak or beech trees (saplings or lower branches), as well beech hedges in gardens or parks, there can still be dead foliage left over from last autumn.
The first blossom
Sometimes cherry plum flowers in February, the first blossom of the year. The wild plant here is a white-flowered hedgerow shrub, but there is also a pink-flowered tree (actually often white-flowered if you look closely, but with red-tinged flower centres, surrounds and twigs that makes its flowers appear pink) which is found in gardens, parks and suburban streets.
For both types the flowering time is variable from year to year and depends on the weather. It can start as early as the second week of February, but a more normal time is from the end of the month to early March. (In colder years it may not start till mid March, but this has not happened since 2011.)
Occasionally, cherry plum flowering starts and is then brought to a halt by cold weather: the tree just waits patiently for this to finish and then resumes. This happened in 2023, when blossom started to appear in places in mid February but mostly did not get going till the end of the month, with some still only part out as late as mid March; also in 2005 and 2018, when tentative flowering in the third week of February was interrupted by cold weather and again did not resume until mid March.
In 2013 flowering started in early March but was then halted by bitterly cold east winds until the first week of April. By contrast, in 2016 a very mild December caused some cherry plums to be out from mid January, with many in full bloom at the start of February, but others lasting into early March.
Once out, cherry plum blossom lasts two to three weeks, though it can seem as if the plant is shedding some its flowers almost as soon as they appear. It is not necessarily the wind that is to blame for this: wood pigeons and other birds also try to eat the blossom (or buds), causing them to fall to the ground.
Very occasionally later in February you may also see budburst (the white of the blossom showing through the bud) or even actual flowering on blackthorn, though this is not supposed to happen until late March or early April. This can be confusing, since blackthorn flowers look almost identical to those cherry plum. The way to tell them apart is that blackthorn has sharp "thorns" (actually dormant side shoots) sticking out at right angles from its twigs, and also that the sepals (tiny green leaves underpinning the flower) are folded back on cherry plum but not on blackthorn.
In another hopeful sign of spring, forsythia, a garden shrub that is also naturalised in some places, often starts to prepare to flower at the end of February, though it does not usually burst into its characteristic riot of yellow flowers until March. Typically - as in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022 - all you see is budburst (the yellow of the flowers starting to show through the buds), but in 2014, 2020 and 2024 forsythias were starting to flower at the end of the month, and in 2023 that happened as early as the second week - though in that year cold weather then kept flowering very tentative until mid March. In 2016 a very few started to flower at the beginning of January due to December having been very mild, but they soon thought better of it and did not resume until March.
Forsythia is not to be confused with the much less luxuriant winter jasmine, which has yellow flowers on bare stalks, and blooms in gardens all winter: most of its flowers have gone over by now but some can last until late February or even March.
Likewise, don't confuse cherry plum blossom with winter flowering cherry, again sometimes seen in gardens or streets, which also has pink blossom. It usually flowers in December or January and is generally on the way out early in February, but some can survive until later in the month or even into early March, or revive then if cold prevented it flowering earlier in the winter.
There is also a pink-flowering garden shrub - viburnum farreri - which due to its colour could be confused at a casual glance with winter flowering cherry. It is often only in flower in the first half of the month, though if it is set back by cold earlier in the winter can sometimes revive in late February or early March.
The more common white-flowered viburnum continues to have some flowers, as it does all winter. And still in gardens, rosemary can sometimes produce blue flowers in February, though more normally this is delayed till as late as April.
Back in the wild, scattered gorse flowers continue to be seen: some bushes may have quite a lot of flowers by now, while others have none.
Some shrubs add foliage
While trees are still bare, some shrubs are already adding foliage. For example, elder can put out tiny new leaves as early as January, with more being added in February. However, this is very variable from year to year and plant to plant, with hardly any seen in some years. They may grow larger very slowly during the month if the weather is mild.
Honeysuckle may have quite a lot of leaves if in suburban areas, or just small clusters of new shoots in woodland: but in either case there is usually further foliage growth during the month. Buddleia has small new leaves, but they have been there since October and do not usually grow noticeably this month, unless the weather is very mild (eg in 2020, 2021 and 2024).
Brambles have new leaf buds sticking at an angle out of their spiny stems, but they do not open yet: they may start to turn green from mid month onwards in a few places however. On some brambles, particularly ones in exposed positions, the foliage from the previous year is almost entirely gone, with just a few maroon, brown or very dark green leaves left. Those in woodland or on sheltered verges still keep a fair number of green leaves, however.
Garden privet keeps some foliage all winter, as to a lesser extent does wild privet, though on downland some wild privets go completely bare. As the month goes on, both species can develop tiny new leaf buds, and at the end of the month they may be forming tiny closed leaf clusters. (Don't confuse these with the small leaves you may see on a garden privet that has been trimmed: these are growth that started in the autumn and stopped when winter started.)
A few hawthorns may also be putting out some tentative new foliage in the second half of the month, though this tends to be just a few isolated examples and it is only younger plants that do this (perhaps genetically programmed to benefit from a little photosynthesis before the tree canopy comes into leaf and blocks their light). Roses may also produce some new leaf shoots: sometimes this happens on the wild dog rose, but otherwise is on garden escapees.
Note also the slowly lengthening of the candle-like flower spikes on cherry laurel (a rubbery-leaved evergreen shrub). At first these are partly coated in white sheaths. but as the month goes on these may start to fall away leaving green spherical buds on lateral stalks. By the end of the month the spikes can be 3-4cm high. (In 2016 cherry laurel flower spikes were full grown with some even flowering in early January, due to a very mild December, and this continued in places throughout February.)
It is these spikes that distinguish cherry laurel from the otherwise similar looking rhododendron, which has more conventional oval buds in the centre of its leaves: these look like flower buds, but actually seem to produce new foliage at this time of year.
The last of the berries
Berries are mostly gone now, though ivy ones are generally at their best (black with a black cap) in the first half of the month. This varies from bush to bush and place to place, however, and some do not ripen till early March, while others fail to do so at all.
Once they are ripe, ivy berries are quickly eaten by blackbirds, thrushes and wood pigeons, for whom they are an important food source at this difficult stage of the winter. Wood pigeons flying up in alarm as you pass an ivy bush are in fact the best indicator of when the berries are ripe, though they do sometimes eat them before they are fully mature.
Dog rose bushes may also still have some hips on them and wild privet a few black berries, and you can see very occasional haws (often, though not always rather rotten), sloes (usually black and shrivelled) and holly berries.
Some white snowberries may be visible, but they are mostly rotting away by now, and the pods of berry-like red-orange seeds you still see on stinking iris (a flowering plant rather than a shrub) are also past their best. Though most of them were consumed by birds in December a few cotoneaster or firethorn (aka pyracantha) berries may survive - possibly in locations inaccessible to their avian consumers.
Hedgerows on chalk soils may still be draped with some wisps of old man's beard (the seeds of traveller's joy), though it is mostly all gone by now: in a few places it can last into March, however.
More February pages:
© Peter Conway 2006-2025 • All Rights Reserved
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