SPRING has sprung several weeks early in a Farnworth garden.

Jim and Judith Higson have enjoyed seeing their garden bloom for the past 25 years.

But this year, they were amazed to find their daffodils had decided to flower a little early . . . just before Christmas.

Green-fingered Jim planted the bulbs in his garden 25 years ago after his wife Judith bought the bulbs, a mixture of daffodils and tulips, from a florist in Farnworth which was closing down back in 1979.

The couple had just moved to their Bolton Road home with their two children who were about to start secondary school.

Mr Higson, aged 61, and now a grandad, said: "Judith brought a job-lot of bulbs home.We had just moved into the house and put them all in the garden.

"We have just left them since and they flower every year without fail, but usually at the end of January or February.

"We couldn't believe it when I looked out of the window and the flowers were out. They looked lovely on Christmas Day when it had been snowing."

Six of the flowers have already bloomed and another six are about to bloom any day.

A Bolton council gardening expert said: "This is highly unusual. I've never heard of daffodils flowering so early in somebody's garden. You really only get daffodils flowering this early when they have been manufactured that way; when they are put into warm environments and fooled into thinking it's earlier than it actually is.

"Dwarf daffodils sometimes come out earlier but to have the larger ones out now is very rare; I've never known it.

"To have planted them so long ago, when only the older varieties were around, makes the flowering even more of a mystery."