Have any of the early booming things, like forsythias, started blooming yet? How workable is your soil? Is it still really wet and muddy?

If nothing is blooming yet I'd wait a bit. That usually means the soil hasn't warmed up enough yet for things to start growing. And if the ground is still really wet you don't want to walk around in your beds compacting the soil. If you can take a handful of soil and squeeze it and when you open your hand it crumbles apart easily that means your soil is dry enough to work in. If it stays in a muddy lump it's too wet.

I start removing anything obviously dead, damaged, or diseased as soon as I start seeing buds swelling. Then I go back again and shape them further when I see the first leaves starting to unfurl -- which, for me here, began about a week ago. I realize that we may get another surprise hard frost or two, but holding off on pruning won't keep them from doing what they're already doing. And I'd rather not have them spend energy leafing out parts I plan on removing. But what I don't do is remove a lot of healthy growth this early, so that I still have some leeway if there's further cold damage in the next few weeks. With most of what I grow, I find that what works better for me is just lightly shaping them and removing dead, damaged, diseased, or "going where I don't want" parts in Spring, then cutting them harder after the first flush. My Chinas and Teas I mostly cut harder in Spring, since they have more Winter damage. But then I just let them go for the rest of the season, only dead-heading and cutting any "going where I don't want" growth.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm going to wait for a couple of weeks to start seasonal pruning in my garden. I have been removing dead and damaged material all winter, whenever I see it. Our weather is unseasonably glorious right now, but I would resist the urge to prune. Go out and pull weeds and put down mulch instead.

I'm waiting for the forsythia to bloom. Most years, I have 2 - 3 inches of new growth when I prune, and it can be as early as mid-March or as late as early April. Probably not so early this year, and I barely have leaf buds showing, even on the behemoth Excellenz von Schubert.