Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms--Flowering Japanese Plum (December 30, 2013)

For several years now I've been keeping a record of the first blooms of the year of various plant species in the garden. Usually our dwarf cyclamen (Cyclamen coum) has the first blooms of the new year, in very late December (I count these December flowers as new blooms because they're the first blooms in the new cycle of flowering each year). This year (thinking of 2014) the honor goes to the white Japanese plum behind the house (Prunus mume), which starting blooming yesterday, December 30--quite early for this plant. It typically blooms in the second or third week of January. In 2012, it bloomed on January 14. In 2011, it bloomed earlier than usual, on January 4. It bloomed on January 19 in 2010 and on January 21 in 2009. I don't seem to have a record for 2013.