
So here's what I found.
Several cultivated varieties of daffodil flower naturally before Christmas, while some wild species can flower as early as October, writes Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor of the Independent. The gold variety (there are pale yellow, white and even red rimmed varieties) typically appears in March but as they're appearing earlier each year has adopted the name February Gold.
Daffodils (the gold variety) were spotted on a bitter cold eve outside an Edinburgh pub in early December 2007. The same golden flower bloomed three months early in West Wales in the Christmas of 06.

I'm certain the daffodils that lined the Greenwich gates came at the end of March last year and was surprised by their early arrival then. The silver lining of climate change - the flowers spring early? If only that balanced things out.