I've been cutting back things for a little over a week now. Prior to that the ground was like walking on a waterbed from all the snow melt. I am still trying to stay out of the garden beds while cutting back. I have a few stepping stones placed in some beds to give me a place to stand or squat. It is not easy and I look like I am playing twister trying to stay out of the beds. After a couple of hours of work my first day out I had four big blisters on my pruner hand and a VERY sore hamstring. What I do now is cut off the old dried up growth and break or cut it into smaller pieces and toss it back on the beds to act as mulch. Then I lightly fluff up the mulch, matted leaves, and debris with a rake...hopefully before new growth would be damaged. I'm going to try just doing this for a while and not use any more wood mulch around plants. I hate trying to dig in a bed that has big hard wood chips ground deep into the soil. Next year I may try getting a long handled hedge trimmer to reach in and cut down the old growth. Then use a rake to pull it out to be cut up and tossed back in. I don't try to break up anything super thick or woody and just put that out for yard waste pickup or in a brush pile. The ornamental grass cuttings would just blow off the beds, so I break them up a little and use them to mulch in my fenced off veggie garden along with purchased straw. I'm in northern IL too and I just had my first few crocus blossoms a few days ago. Wish I could remember which variety they are because they are much earlier than the other varieties which just have leaves up. My daffodils are about 3-4" up too. The only perennials I noticed with new growth is some catmint, a few columbines, and one errant hosta shoot. We got a few pansies put out yesterday just for a little early color.

The question is who is in charge of your garden? IMHO, one of the most important things to realize about growing roses is that they exist to serve *YOU*, not the other way around. If you are making reasonable choices (a reasonable spray program if you are going to grow susceptible roses, carefully picking no spray varieties if you don't want to spray) and still having problems with some varieties, it is probably time to ditch those varieties. Otherwise, you end up sliding down a slippery slope where you are going to serious extremes to pamper a few undeserving divas.

I don't know if stuttgart is different for some reason, but this is my second year starting my canna around this time. I bought some from Ebay last year (purpurea) and just potted them up and started them. They did really well last summer! A few days ago I brought mine back out from storage. I haven't potted them yet. I might just leave them in their box to slowly wake up. I'm certainly not an expert, but my vote would be pot it up and start it with your banana plants. I don't know if it'll honestly give you a jump on growth when it's all said and done (they all seem to catch up to the same level once they're outside in warm soil), but if you just want to see a little growth I don't think it'll hurt anything either.

Ruth, your zone is after your name for folks signed in via Gardenweb, but for those who sign in through Houzz, it doesn’t show. So I remedied that by adding it as part of my “name (publicly displayed)” on my “My Houzz” page and removing it in the line provided for zone info. You want to protect plants from really extreme temp changes now; I might put them in a garden cart or wheelbarrow and move them into a shed or unheated garage if temperatures get really cold. Or if there are too many or you don’t have an unheated shelter, you can throw quilts over them on cold nights and perhaps set them against the north foundation. That will keep them dormant. For instance, we had a few nights in the low teens and days that didn’t get out of the low 30s after several days in the 60 or even 70s, which isn’t an issue for plants in the ground, but might be for plants in pots. When plants are in the ground, the mass of soil makes a great heat sink and so roots are protected and temperatures stay cool until it is time for plants to grow. In pots, especially in a sunny site, soil may warm enough that plants start growing before it is really warm enough, and they may experience many freeze-thaw cycles. Edited to add that I cross posted with party music. I don’t know where s/he is but in my cold zone 5 it is still too early.