Plants and flowers across Oxfordshire have been tricked into a second bloom as summery weather extends into the autumn months.

Gardeners across the county are just as confused as the flora, with trees sprouting spring blossom and flowers such as roses and dahlias continuing to appear well beyond their expected season.

Bob Owen, of Cowley, who won an award for his back garden in this year's Oxford in Bloom competition, said: "I've never seen the garden looking so good.

"Normally everything's gone by now. The begonias have probably lasted six weeks longer this year.

"During the heatwave, nothing really grew. It made the garden dormant. But it looks better this autumn than it did in the summer."

This is Oxfordshire's longest summer since records began in 1689, with record temperatures nationally in July and September - and yesterday, it was another glorious day in Oxford with blue sky and sunshine.

A spokesman for the Met Office said: "This continues the trend from right through the summer. It's unsurprising to see flowers and trees with a second bloom."

"Over the coming 40 or 50 years we expect to see an increase in heatwave conditions."

The Met Office said people shouldn't jump to conclusions based on the unusual weather of a single year. However, its meteorologists warned that fears about freak weather conditions caused by global warming could soon outstrip gardeners' delight at late-blooming plants.

In Headington, keen gardener Stephanie Jenkins still has flowers on her yukka and fuschias.

She said: "It is an amazing year. Nothing has lost its leaves yet. The apple tree has got all its leaves and all the deciduous plants, which look bare in winter, are not deciduous.

"It never used to be like this."

Guy Barter, head of advisory services at the Royal Horticultural Society, believes that not just high temperatures, but a mixture of low frost damage in the spring, a hot summer and lots of autumn rain has created good conditions for gardens.

He said: "This unusual combination of events means that plants are still flowering. Bananas have been appearing as far north as Norfolk, so there could be some in Oxfordshire too."

Climate facts

Winters will be less cold and there will be more heavy sudden rainstorms and flash flooding as climate change bites.

By the 2060s people will look back to these temperatures and consider 2006 to have been quite a cool summer.

In 100 years our climate could be similar to central France.

The Forestry Commission is already starting to plant a different range of species.

Sustainable power sources, biofuel, water-saving taps and energy-saving bulbs will become the norm.

Global warming news in Oxfordshire this year

In March, Oxford hosted a major four-day international conference on renewable energy, as the Government admitted that it would fail to meet its manifesto target to reduce carbon emissions by 2010.

In April, Witney MP and Conservative leader David Cameron visited a Norwegian glacier to see the effects of climate change and announced plans to convene a local Green Energy Summit.

In May, Lord May of Oxford drew attention to the impact of global warning on the exinction of Britain's native species at the first Oxford Earthwatch Lecture at the Said Business School.

In June, conservationists at Wytham Woods, near Oxford, used the example of birds' confused breeding systems to highlight the potentially devastating effects of global warming to visiting Environment Minister David Milliband.

In August, the director of the Oxfordshire-based UK Climate Impact Programme, Dr Chris West, warned that Oxfordshire could become a wine producing land with Mediterranean temperatures.