Children in Lincoln hoping to pick wild daffodils for Mother's Day will find themselves out of luck.

The cold weather has stopped the yellow flowers raising their heads above the soil.

And experts are saying they might not appear for another three weeks.

Quality manager at Spalding-based Taylor's Bulbs Johnny Walkers said: "It is hard to quantify exactly how much production is down but it is certainly noticeable.

"Normally at this time of year we have about 150 people employed to meet demand but at the moment we are getting by with 10 or 15 people.

"It is purely the cold weather stopping them from coming up, we are still getting over night frosts which mean it is far too cold for them to grow.

"I'd say we're about a month behind, even though we'll miss Mother's Day there will be a bumper haul for Easter which is another really important period for daffodil sales."

Lincolnshire produces about 60 per cent of the country's daffodils, with most of the remaining flowers coming from Cornwall.