The harsh winter in Britain has led to early signs of spring, from snowdrops to frogspawn, appearing later than normal this year, according to sightings by the public.

But experts said the early hold-up caused by the bitterly cold December meant the rest of spring was likely to be “thundering” through in a rush in the coming months.

According to sightings reported to Nature’s Calendar, a scheme which is run by the Woodland Trust, far fewer snowdrops, lesser celandine, hazel flowers and nesting rooks had been spotted by the end of the first week of February compared to last year.

There had been fewer than 300 sightings of snowdrops by February 9, the Woodland Trust said, compared to 1,265 by that date last year.

The average date for spotting the first snowdrops is February 4, according to Nature’s Calendar, which uses 2001 as the baseline year because temperatures were very close to the long-term average that year.

Tim Sparks, founder of Nature’s Calendar, which allows the public to report signs of the seasons across the country and help experts gain an accurate picture of how temperature changes are affecting nature, put this year’s slow start down to the coldest December in 100 years of records.

“It was that cold month which has delayed flowering of things like celandines and snowdrops,” he said.

But with fairly average temperatures experienced in January, the cold winter is not likely to delay the rest of spring, with bluebells, wood anemones and the leafing of oak trees expected to occur on time.

And because spring has been held up until now, events could unfold rapidly – unless there is another cold snap.

“We expect these things thundering through now, I think it’s going to come through very rapidly,” he said.

“Things will come on in much of a rush because they’ve been held back.

“By the time we get to hawthorn and bluebells, later spring events, they’re going to be the usual time or could even be earlier,” he suggested.

A count of plants flowering in National Trust gardens, which takes place on Valentine’s Day each year, found that more blooms had appeared than last year, suggesting the spring flowers were coming earlier than the previous year.

According to the count, there were 1,395 plants recorded in 16 gardens in Devon and Cornwall compared with just 1,115 last year, but far fewer than the early spring of 2008.

And 22 additional gardens across the country took part in the count for the second year, with an overall 17 per cent increase nationally in the number of plants and bulbs in bloom by mid-February.

The Trust said that last year its garden plants were hit by the cold January, but this winter the freezing temperatures were earlier – hitting at a time when buds were at their tightest, giving plants the most protection to make a good recovery when temperatures started to rise.

Ian Wright, National Trust South West Gardens adviser, said: “In the South West our gardens are just beginning to burst into life; the worst that could happen now is a late cold spell which would damage the buds which have already begun to open.”

He said: “When we do get some warmth from the elusive sun, our gardens will be under starter’s orders and, quite frankly, bursting with blooms, blossoms and flowering bulbs.”