| RATHE | Blossoming or ripening early in the season (5) |
| EARLY | Of plants, flowering or ripening before others (5) |
| BOHEA | Black China tea grown late in the season (5) |
| ASTER | It blooms late in the season |
| FLORA | The first name of the heroine in Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons; a treatise on botany; or, the Roman goddess of spring and blossoming plants (5) |
| DEVELOPMENT | Blossoming, progress or ripening (11) |
| SANTA | A sweet, creamy-fleshed pear ripening in December - present distributor! (5,5) |
| CLAUS | A sweet. creamy-fleshed pear ripening in December - present distributor! (5.5) |
| SUMMER | A time of blossoming or happiness; a poetic word for a year; one of the four seasons; or, from the Old French meaning "packhorse", a large beam or lintel (6) |
| BOUQUETIERES | French word, rooted in "bushes, clumps of trees" and blossoming or stemming from "posies, corsages", for female florists, flower girls or flower sellers; or, garnishing garlands or jardinieres of fres |
| FIORITURE | From Italian for "blossoming" or "flowering", a florid embellishment of a melodic line, either notated by the composer or improvised at the discretion of an aria/opera singer (9) |
| UNDEFEATED | Like some baseball teams, early in the season |
| TROUT | Game swimmer in river, after time, blossoming (5) |
| GRASP | Get hold of some late-ripening raspberries (5) |
| OLIVE | Small oily Mediterranean yellow-green fruit, ripening to black (5) |
| FORCER | Terracotta pot used to encourage rhubarb to grow early in the season (6) |
| OSIER | Tree blossoming more, the first to be removed |
| LILAC | Cilla's blossoming form (5) |
| NAVEL | ___ orange (winter-ripening fruit) |
| NELIS | Variety of winter-ripening pear |
