pix???

in my z5... id be patient for another month or 2 ...

even so.. i dont know what your hurry is in your zone ...

are they exactly next to each other..... or could there be micro climate issues ...??? .. is the soil colder there.. so the plants are slower ... was winter worse there???

ken

Thanks. It was not a very cold winter. There are two together, and a third one a little further which is showing life. Mostly the same microclimate though the alive one has some plants around it that may shelter it. The fourth one which is alive is in a different area altogether. I will just wait. I am not in that big of a hurry but thought if cutting it back might help it sooner might be better than later. The stems just look bad...have not seen the black color before.

It is hard having patience, is it not? I see pictures and I want mine to be further ahead and blooming starting two months ago. Ha. Some old wood lacecaps may already have stems with unopened spring 2022 flower buds (inside the stems) while some new wood lacecaps do not have flower buds yet and can be pruned or whatever... now thru mid spring or so. The plants still refuse to use the Internet to communicate via email with each other to coordinate leaf out so, do not panic if one is ahead of others by a little or a lot. They tend to develop new growth from the base faster than leaf out from the stems sometimes so I prefer to let the leaf out happen as late as the end of May. If nothing is growing by the end of May on those stems then prune them away. A micro-cliimate could affect how quickly they break dormancy or not.

“It was not a very cold winter.”

Sometimes it is not the absolute cold but the timing of frosts and cold snaps after warmer weather has caused plants to start growing. And while you didn’t say where you are, I know from warching the weather that parts of the southern US have had some unexpectedly sudden cold snaps.

Yes, we had an arctic blast pretty recently sandwiched between temps close to 80. I am in zone 7a , NC. Usually by now they are showing leaf buds. Two of mine are doing that and the other two are doing absolutely nothing. At this time of year it is usual to see growth. The black stems were there before the arctic blast. The stems come out of the crowns so thickly I don't see how the plant would have room for new stems. So getting rid of old stems seemed reasonable. The stems on these usually get pruned down to the first leaf bud which is usually at about 4.5' tall. They are never cut down to the crown.