Picture: cherry plum blossom in a park. Click here for more March tree photos.
Hedgerows and trees are still mainly brown and bare in March, but they are starting to wake up, with blossom and new leaves appearing on some species.
The month often begins with cherry plum in flower - both the pink-flowered ornamental park or city street version (actually often white-flowered if you look closely, but with red-brown foliage that makes its flowers appear pink) and the wild white one in the countryside. Timings vary from year to year depending on how cold it is: it typically comes out at the end of February or the start of March, but can be two weeks earlier or later.
Once out, the blossom usually lasts about three weeks, though there have been years when a cold snap hit just as flowering was starting and it then went into suspended animation for several weeks. Extremes include 2010, when cherry plums did not come out till late March, and 2016 when a warm December and January persuaded many to flower in early February, going over at its end, though some flowered in March as usual and lasted into the first week of April.
After cherry plum blossom fades it is replaced by leaves, and some younger bushes leaf without flowering, so that in a normal year wild cherry plum is one of the first shrubs in the countryside to put out new greenery.
Confusingly it is then followed by the almost identical blackthorn blossom. It is not untypical for some of these - usually younger or smaller bushes - to flower in the second half of March, and in many years there is a more widespread flowering of larger bushes in the last week of the month. Otherwise, this happens in the first week of April.
Blackthorn has a very short flowering time - ten days or so at best. Some younger ones, or the lower parts of more mature ones, may also go straight to leaf, though generally foliage only appears after the blossom fades. It can be told apart from cherry plum by the thorns sticking out horizontally from its branches, which soften and become covered in blossom when it flowers. Cherry plum also has folded-back sepals on its flowers, while blackthorn does not.
Another cheerful sight at this time of year is forsythia, a garden shrub that is also found in semi-wild situations and which banishes the winter blues with a great wash of yellow flowers. Again, timings vary according to the air temperature. Flowering can be as early as mid February but is more typically sometime in the first half of March.
In 2023 tentative forsythia blooms in late February and early March were kept at bay mid month, however and in 2025 and 2018 they were not fully out until the last week of March. In contrast, in 2016 some flowered as early as late December in response to a very mild winter up to that point. As with cherry plum, the flowers give way to leaves after about three weeks or so.
Another garden shrub you can sometimes find in the wild is flowering currant, whose pendulous pink flowers start to appear mid month and are at their best at its end.
Only ever found in gardens, but still a key harbinger of spring, is magnolia, whose huge pink flowers first appear tightly closed, and then, when conditions are right, open up to enjoy their brief moment of glory. This can happen as early as the second week of March, but the last week is a more normal time. In 2016 some started to flower in late December and then went into suspended animation when January proved cold: some then bloomed quite early in March while others waited till April.
Other flowering garden shrubs that attract attention at this time of year include Darwin's barberry, which has bright orange flowers in the second half of the month, and rosemary, which may erupt into a blue haze at any time in March (or even February) though it otherwise waits till April. A few winter jasmine flowers may linger on early in the month, while the white-flowered viburnum can be fading away if it has flowered a lot earlier in the winter, or be at its best in March if it has not.
The candle-like flower buds on cherry laurel continue to lengthen, reaching 6-7 centimetres tall by the end of the month. In many years they are starting to flower at this time, though otherwise this does not happen until April. In 2016 some had been in flower since early January and continued to do so patchily until mid to late April.
The flower spikes distinguish cherry laurel from the otherwise very similar-looking rhododendron, which has more conventional, bulb-shaped buds: earlier in the year these produce new foliage, and this sometimes happens in March too. But some may also be flower buds now, as the plant readies to bloom in May.
Box (for example on the slopes of Box Hill) may put out flowers in places in March, or even in late February. On heathland and scrubland, gorse, whose cheerful yellow flowers have slowly been building up all winter, now makes quite an intense display.
In some years wild cherry starts to leaf and flower at the very end of the month, though April is the normal time for this.
Shrubs adding foliage
Though April is the main month when shrubs and trees spring into leaf, the process makes a start in March, while other plants have had some foliage all winter.
The appearance of leaves on cherry plum and forsythia once their flowers fade, as well as the occasional early blackthorn foliage, is mentioned above. Other shrubs in leaf in March include privet and buddleia. Both retain some of their foliage in winter and now add more.
On garden privet (the kind found in garden hedges) this process is usually under way when the month starts: you see clusters of small new leaves. On wild privet (narrower leaves) it is a bit more tentative, but most will be showing leaf buds - or even small leaf hearts - though they usually do not grow much during the month. Buddleia has had small new leaves since shedding its previous year's foliage in October: these grow to around half to two thirds of their final size in March.
Honeysuckle has clusters of new foliage too, having put out some as early as December, or even November: it can be quite a surprise to see these in the middle of otherwise bare woods. These leaf clusters bulk up during March and can provide quite a thick coverage by the second half, making a splash of bright new greenery in the woodscape. Honeysuckles near gardens or habitation, which preserve more vegetation in winter, can be thick and lush even earlier in the month.
Right from the start of the month some smaller or younger hawthorn bushes also put out new leaves. In most years this then spreads to all other hawthorns in the third or fourth week though some may hold out till early April. Since it is a common shrub, this is a significant contribution to the greening of the landscape.
Unless it is very cold, the tentative small leaf clusters that appeared on elder as early as January increase in quantity and size as March goes on. The garden escapee firethorn (aka pyracantha) adds new leaves to its existing ones from around mid month (sometimes earlier).
Other shrubs seem to be testing the air. On dog rose you can see curled up tubes of new foliage or even tiny new leaves in the second half of the month, sometimes earlier. As early as mid month (late February in 2020, from the second week of March in 2022, 2024 and 2026) bramble also starts to put out new leaves from the buds on its stems that appeared in January, though they remain very small and tentative.
Raspberry starts to leaf from mid month too and can be easily confused with bramble: it grows straight up, while bramble puts out runners that spread horizontally. You may also spot new leaves appearing on redcurrant as the month goes on, while snowberry - usually a park or garden shrub but sometimes found in the wild - produces new foliage from the second week onward.
Other shrubs that start to produce foliage in March include lilac and (later in the month) traveller's joy, the latter just producing a few scattered leaf clusters at this stage, even while there are still some dribs and drabs of old man's beard, last year's seed, which can last till late in the month. You may also see new leaf shoots on dogwood, tamarisk (by the sea) and clematis montana (a pink flowered clematis that lives semi-wild on railway line fences and the like).
Lingering berries
A few of last autumn's berries may linger into March. Hips can still be seen here and there, though often rotting, and help one to identify dog roses coming into leaf. Black ivy berries may also last into March, though most have been snapped up by wood pigeons and other birds by now.
You might also see the occasional berries of holly or wild privet, or the seedhead of stinking iris, which looks like a cluster of red-orange berries. Firethorn (aka pyracantha) and cotoneaster berries can also survive if they were not consumed by birds back in the winter, even while new foliage comes out on the bushes). Early in the month a few (probably rotting) white berries may just remain on snowberry bushes.
The first tree to come into leaf
The first tree to come into leaf is – surprisingly – weeping willow, which can put out green shoots even in the second half of February, and is generally full out - with small leaves and catkins - in the first week of March.
Weeping willows can start out looking a dull yellow, but within a week shine out a glorious lime green in the landscape, a harbinger of the wonderful transformation of the treescape to come. If you see sections of frond on the ground, that is because squirrels cut them off and gnaw their way along them, eating the catkins corn-on-the-cob style.
Towards the end of the month (in the second week in 2020, mid month in 2026) the huge buds on horse chestnut open to disgorge weird tongues of vegetation that eventually morph into small leaves that hang limp and green. It is rare for this process to be much advanced by the end of March, however.
Sometimes quite early in the month, but more usually towards its end, hazel puts out small leaves, though they grow only very slowly, if at all. These look almost identical to new leaves on hornbeam (the two trees are related) which appear along with inconspicuous female flowers late in the month (mid month in 2026). On some hornbeams, and more in some years than in others, this is preceded from mid month onwards (the second week in 2026) by a mass of male catkins.
You can otherwise distinguish hazel leaves from hornbeam by the remaining catkins hanging on hazel branches - mostly desiccated and brown by now, but some possibly still in yellow flower. These can last until mid March or even beyond in places, and once fallen are very noticeable on the ground.
Alder catkins also usually fall in the first or second week, though in some years this does not happen until the second half. Some dead brown ones remain on the trees for some time after general flowering is over. The trees also still retain last year's seed cones.
Other seeds you may still see include ash keys, empty seed cases on beech and the large spherical seed balls on London plane: also very occasionally last year's seed cylinders on birch or a few remaining seeds on sycamore and field maple. Beech and oak trees can still retain some dead leaves from last year: this is usually on saplings or lower branches, as well as on trimmed beech hedges.
Hybrid black poplars have had large male catkins encased in erect brown buds all winter: some time in March (often in the first half) they open and a thick erect catkin emerges (maroon, though they can initially look brown), which then droops, hanging down like a huge tassel.
You are more likely to notice the mess as the bud cases fall to the ground (possibly aided by wood pigeons trying to eat the new catkins), or when the catkins fall of their own accord a week or so later, looking like enormous red caterpillars as they lie on the grass (though a few desiccated brown ones usually also remain on the tree).
Lombardy poplars have similar (possibly somewhat smaller catkins) which appear at about the same time. If you see a poplar with green catkins, particularly planted in a row, it might well be a western balsam poplar, which used to be used as a windbreak tree in apple orchards: these also seem to leaf in March, earlier than the other two species.
Right from the start of March you get fuzzy red flowers on red maple, an imported species mainly seen in streets and parks: they can last for much of the month. English or wych elm has similar flowers at the same time but they are relatively inconspicuous.
March is the month for pussy willow catkins (more correctly, the catkins of the goat willow or sallow and the grey willow - or a hybrid between the two). A few of the white or grey-white buds that will turn into these can appear as early as mid February; the catkins themselves - yellow when fully in flower - mostly do not appear en masse till mid March, though you may see a few a bit earlier.
All of this describes the male catkins of pussy willows: the female ones, which also appear mid month on different trees, can start by looking grey but then turn green. Osier has male catkins similar to pussy willow ones, though more densely packed on its straight, upwardly-pointing branches.
Crack willows, white willows and hybrids of the two, which are found both as full-sized trees and riverside shrubs, don’t put out leaves and catkins until the very end of the month at the earliest. It is usually crack willows that are the first to do this.
By the end of March some sycamore saplings may be coming into leaf, though larger trees wait till mid April, their green buds getting larger in anticipation. The smaller trees are presumably primed to leaf earlier to make the most of the sunlight reaching the woodland floor before the leaf canopy closes.
Early in the month you can see little orange flowers on male yew trees which at some point in the first half (or sometimes in late February) give off clouds of yellow pollen if touched (this can be synchronised over wide areas, so all the yews in a particular region do it at once).
In the second half larch - the only conifer to lose its leaves in winter – puts out new leaf tassels (wonderfully soft to the touch), as well as a very few tiny pink cone-shaped flowers (the female flowers) and little yellow buds (the male flowers).
In many years the strange male flowers of ash open at the end of March (as early as the second week in 2020 and 2025), looking like frizzy lettuce. You can sometimes tell that they are out because wood pigeons peck away at them. Also at the end of the month you may see the yellowy-green flowers of Norway maple, which look from distance like new leaves.
Other tree signs you may just see at this time include budburst (the new leaves starting to emerge) on apples, or catkins starting to lengthen (and even small leaves appearing) on birch - but the latter always seems to be on isolated trees, not the general population. At the same time you might see the pea-sized green balls that will become the flowers on London planes, and budburst (leaf and flower shoots together) on field maple.
More March pages:
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