The bright yellow flowers usually blossom in early March in Italy and are gifted to women across the nation on March 8, to celebrate International Women’s Day.
“In recent years there has been a climate change that has favoured this early flowering, especially in February and also early January,” said Franco Fogliarini, president of the local Cooperativa Agroflor in the self-proclaimed principality of Seborga.
“For us it’s a bit of a problem because it gives us little time for the harvest and sales.”
Meanwhile, the workers continue cutting the fluffy flowers on the hills around Seborga on the Riviera dei Fiori (Flower Riviera), just across the French border.
The local economy in the province, which lies in the region of Liguria, has largely relied on the flowers for the last 50 years.
The mimosa is a native Australian shrub, and first left the country when seeds were transported to England from 1780 on, and cultivated in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.
Ornamental varieties later sent to the south of France and the great palazzos of Rome proved to be a hit among the locals.
Today the flowers are hand-picked, painstakingly packed into boxes and then despatched around Italy, to the rest of Europe and beyond.
Extreme weather caused by climate change has been wreaking havoc on the Italian agriculture industry in recent years.
Severe storm and flood damage across the country has cost the sector around €16 million over the last decade, according to Italian agricultural group Coldiretti.
