Plantwatch: Flowers brave the freezing weather

After the tremendous freeze last month, it might seem incredible that any plant would be brave enough to come into flower now. But January has thawed out, and already gorse bushes are ablaze with brilliant yellow flowers, heavy with the exotic scent of coconut. (Some people can't smell the flowers.) They are edible and can be put into salads, used to brew a tea or to make wine. It really feels at the moment like the worst of winter is over and spring is just around the corner. Hazel catkins have remained hard, brown and dormant in the cold weather, but now they are showing the first signs of swelling up with pollen and swinging like lamb's tails. Hazel was one of the first trees to recolonise Britain after the last ice age, so they can they can tolerate a nip in the air. But for most shrubs and trees, the only signs of life are leaf buds beginning to swell up, and it's fascinating to identify them before their leaves emerge. Horse chestnuts are easy to recognise with their pairs of big, plump buds covered in sticky scales, butted up against horseshoe-shaped scars where last year's leaf stalks were attached. The olive-green twigs of ash are usually easy to spot in a hedgerow, where they often tower above other shrubs, and peppered with tiny ink- black, conical buds. Another distinctive candidate is the beech, with its long, spear-shaped buds sprouting out on zig-zagging dark twigs.