Early blooming daffodils have caught organisers of a North Yorkshire festival on the hop.

The annual daffodil service at St Mary's Church, Farndale, which has become a local tradition over the last 20 years, has had to be brought forward three weeks, for fear the daffodils could die before the April 19th event.

Meanwhile, in York, council gardeners are scratching their heads in perplexity because the city's daffs have lasted so long.

Rumours abound the plants may have been fed with aspirin to keep them in tip-top shape during the Ecofin weekend - though they have been vigorously denied.

In Farndale, the Rev David Purdy, who is now conducting the daffodil service this Sunday, at 2.30pm, said he couldn't understand why the flowers had bllommed so early.

He said: "I spoke to a farmer who has lived in the area all his life, and he said he had never known them to come into bloom so early.

"They're absolutely beautiful at the moment, and we wouldn't want them to die before the service that specifically takes place to acknowledge them."

York's magnificent flowers confounded all concerns they would have wilted before the Ecofin conference arrived in York - but nobody quite knows why.

Flower watchers at the City of York Council deny using aspirin to give the blooms a helping hand and insist it's all the work of Mother Nature.

David Meigh, of the council's development and environmental services department, said: "We can't do anything special, it's just good fortune."

And the Aspirin? "Somebody's having their leg pulled," retorted Mr Meigh.

Andy Suggitt, of Dean's Garden Centre, Stockton-on-Forest, near York, said the daffodils have lasted well because although they bloomed early a cold spell in March effectively held their progress.

See COMMENT Bright and Clean

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.