Horticultural expert Art Wolk, quoted on the You Bet Your Garden website, had this to say about daffodils and tulips popping up in January: “Tell everyone who has greenery up already not to worry and not to do anything to try and ‘help’ the bulbs,” he says. “They may bloom a month earlier than usual, or they may bloom pretty much on schedule if it takes the soil an especially long time to warm up in the spring, but they should bloom just fine.”

The leaves popping up above the soil now are tough, and the stems and flowers are safe inside the bulbs.

Wolk said the early sprouting was caused by a colder-than-usual October, followed by a warm November and December, which tricked bulbs into thinking it was spring.

“Just warn people especially not to cover them with a lot of any kind of mulch to try and protect them,” he says. “They don’t need any help, and I’ve seen frozen mulch do a lot more damage to emerging flowers than weird weather ever could.”