That's great it's not dead! Maybe the variety just takes a long time to wake up. I'm rooting cuttings of three different varieties of grape vine, and two varieties have little leaves already. The last just look like dead sticks, but I can see roots forming from the bottom of the pots. I guess mine aren't dead, either.

if its a plain old blue spruce... then it is most likely dead .... especially if brown .... a pic would sure help ... there are some varieties that are yellow... but i cant recall any blue/green ones .. that change to yellow in fall ... ken

fireweed22 - I think you are definitely on to something by leaving the rosemary outside as long as possible. I would say do the same routine in reverse in the spring. Reducing the indoor time to the absolute minimum has to be a good thing. Rosemary can take temps below freezing - it's not tropical so it doesn't instantly turn to mush. It just can't take deep and prolonged freezes. It is an outside plant here and most winters will experience several days and more nights below freezing.

I agree with Ian - because of our so-far very cool spring (predicting snow mixed with rain today!), many plants are slower than typical to wake up from winter. I wouldn't be too quick to make decisions on what's dead or alive......yet :-) And a good number of semi-evergreen shrubs lost most of their foliage in our winter cold.....abelias among them. Also many daphnes. Nandinas exposed to severe abrupt cold - like we had in December - will lose top growth but should sprout from the root crown. I can see new growth appearing on several of mine (oddly, 'Filamentosa' appears totally unaffected!). hemnancy, where are you located that you missed that cold snap right before Christmas, where temperatures plummeted into the single digits in many areas? Or did it just slip your mind :-)