My forsythia has been blooming off and on all winter. I'll wait until late Feb or early March to prune. (DC suburbs)

Wow, what a difference a zone makes! There is nothing green or growing or even close to it around here. It's still gray and snow covered and freezing cold!

I started last week. I babysit my grand baby so any few moments I get I prune away! I sometimes have a few spots that will prob need repruned a tad but they do fine for the most part. I'm sooooooo ready for anything to pop up and bloom. My Lenten roses are budding up so I should have a few blooms then.

We have a short growing season up here, being so far north, but it doesn't get really cold usually. It just sort of stays the same-on and on and on. So to make a long whine short, I won't be pruning till the end of March or so. Pruning too soon here makes it easy for bacterial cane blight (canker) to set in, as I learned a couple of years ago. The problem is late freezes which damage the pruned cane. This sets up the canes for the blight. So it will be a while. Diane

I love winter pruning as it gives me something to do on a warmish day, as long as the ground is not too soggy. I only work on my antique once-bloomers though. I leave the moderns alone until the forsythia blooms.

A little early to do your spring pruning in zone 7...Here in this part of SC in zone 8 we don't start till the final weekend of February... At the coast in Charleston they start around Valentines Day...Our rose society maintains the roses at the hospital in Columbia

Here in N. Arizona Zone 8b I am almost done. I will be finished by next week. All 25 -yippee

I don't winter prune at all. I'll wait until mid March at the earliest. I find if I let last years canes alone, if we have any early warm spells, all the new growth comes at the ends of these canes and if it gets cold again it just hurts the ends of these canes that will be pruned in march anyway. If I prune in the winter and new growth starts up during the winter, it can really hurt the bush if a freeze catch's everything.

Exactly, Ken. That's why I wait, too, plus the cane blight problem we have in this area. Diane

I shall wait! Thank you all for your input.

The way I see it Mother nature already has pruned mine. Every thing that is above the mulch is dead! I don't start until the forsythia is blooming.

I start pruning as soon as the holidays are over, weather permitting, and keep on until either all the roses are done or spring is well under way. I have several hundred plants. Most of my roses are old or older varieties, and the reliably deciduous, cold hardy kinds--Gallicas, Albas, Mosses, etc.--can be pruned as soon as they drop their leaves, usually in late fall, so I do them first. Those kinds that want to be evergreen, like the Hybrid Musks and the Wichuriana ramblers, follow, then last of all come the warm climate roses, the Teas and Chinas and above all the big climbers, Noisettes, Tea-Noisettes and climbing Teas, that require a major annual pruning. These last I do in March when there's little danger of more snow or a hard freeze.
Pruning weather has been good this winter, unlike last year when the ground was covered by snow for much of the winter. Last winter I never pruned many of my roses at all, so they're due and overdue for a survey and cleanup. Also I have an assistant this year, a woman who comes one morning a week and clears or trims weeds and grass in the beds while I concentrate on pruning. She's a big help. And I find I enjoy the company while working.
Melissa