Flower blooming out of season
A flower blooming out of season is often answering a warm spell or a hard summer followed by rain, reading its own cues, not the calendar. The Glastonbury Thorn, said to blossom at Christmas, shows how such a plant can become a legend.
What it may mean
Gardens run on cues: day length, cold nights, rain after drought. When a lilac blooms in October or a rose opens in the first frost, the plant has not lost its way; it has read its cues differently from everything around it, often after a stressful summer or a long warm spell. The Glastonbury Thorn was famous for this. The story goes that after England changed its calendar in 1752, crowds came to see it flower on the new Christmas Day, but it kept to the old one. Old Scottish and Welsh beliefs read such blossoms as signs of weddings or deaths, but off schedule is not the same as wrong. People bloom on different calendars too: the late starter, the one who changes course at fifty. An out-of-season flower makes a good case for no longer measuring yourself against the neighbors' timetable.
Depending on how you saw it
A red rose in the fall
Old lore from the west of Scotland read a red rose blooming in the fall as a wedding sign. A late rose is a cheerful surprise when the rest of the garden is fading. Which late, unexpected good thing this year deserves a celebration of its own?
Fruit trees blossoming in fall
Apple and pear trees sometimes put out a few blossoms in fall after drought, storms or pests have stripped their leaves. It is a sign of stress as much as of beauty. Where are you blooming out of season because something knocked you off your rhythm, and do you need rest more than praise?
Bulbs pushing up in a winter thaw
A mild week in January can coax daffodil tips out of the ground long before spring. They are answering warmth, not the calendar. What in you is responding to a brief warm spell, and how will it fare if the cold returns?
Why it happens in nature
Plants time their flowering by temperature, day length and moisture. A warm spell in fall or winter, rain after a long drought, or the loss of leaves to pests or storms can wake buds intended for the next spring, so some trees and shrubs bloom a second time. A few plants, such as some varieties of hawthorn, naturally flower twice a year.
What folk beliefs say
Scotland (west)
In the west of Scotland, a red rose blooming in the fall was a sign of a wedding.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 836. View the page
Wales (Llangynwyd)
In the parish of Llangynwyd, Wales, the blossoming of fruit trees at an unseasonable time of year was counted among the signs that a death was approaching.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, pp. 184-185. View the page
England (Glastonbury)
The Glastonbury Thorn was famed for blossoming at Christmas. According to the 1903 collection, when the calendar changed in 1752, crowds gathered at Glastonbury to see it flower on the new Christmas Day, but it kept to the old day instead.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 848. View the page
To reflect on
Whose timetable have you been measuring yourself against, and does it fit your season?