Plant-growing season in UK now a month longer than in 1990

Met Office record shows growing season in past 10 years is on average 29 days longer than between 1961-1990

The growing season for plants has become a month longer than it was a few decades ago, Met Office figures show. In the last 10 years, the growing season, measured according to the central England temperature daily record, which stretches back hundreds of years, has been on average 29 days longer than in the period 1961-1990, the data show. And while more of the year is warm enough for plants to grow, there has also been a decline in the number of frosty days in recent decades, the Met Office said.

Between 2006 and 2015, the plant growing season, which begins and ends with periods of consecutive days where daily temperatures average more than 5C (41F) and is without any five-day spells of temperatures below 5C, averaged 280 days.