The forsythia is getting going, and I expect will be in full swing within the next week or two (and that is on the north side of the house!)

We are at heading towards mid-March-ish now, so I'm wondering whether I might begin pruning things lightly over the next several weeks. I doubt I'll be able to see the canes and overall shape of the plant through a thick covering of leaves if I wait until end of month. I certainly wouldn't be waking anything out of dormancy and don't think it is possible to encourage growth to a greater extent than the weather's already doing.

Was just thinking it would be very handy to have a lot of the pruning done before all of my new bare-roots start to arrive for planting in early April.

So...would I really be jumping the gun if I start now in zone 6b?

I bury grafts instead of winter-protecting nowadays, so there is no uncovering to be done.

I think a key element in timing would be, if you have to prune any rose very severely, don't do it so early that new basal growth provoked by the pruning could be killed back. I think it would take about three weeks for new basal growth to break through the mulch.

Prune your hardier roses first. I had to cut one rose all the way back to find healthy wood. On reflection, it might have been a good idea to wait a week or two on that one.

I don't plan to give anyone a severe pruning and will probably do some summer pruning when dead-heading to keep the monsters like Teasing Georgia in check (provided we don't get a hard freeze that takes out some of this). And it doesn't appear that there is much dead wood out there. Perhaps a few ends that the cane borers got when I didn't seal them properly. I no longer grow standards (I got tired of hauling them into the garage and getting prickles going from house to car) so there isn't anything to cover/uncover or move here. Just eventually to tidy up leaves or mulch around them for the coming season.

Lovely day to be out today, so I think I'm going for it! Going to get at least some of the job done...

I've never lost a rose, but mine have taken a beating some years, like the one Seil mentions. I don't do any winter protection and the grafts are somewhat random depths at this point as beds have subsided a bit, been mulched in, etc. The Austins are all supposed to be hardy to zone 5, so I guess with this now being 6b (with climate change) I may lose growth to late freezes but it rarely does in the plant.

I went for it on the south side plants that were going-going-gone today. Good thing too--Teasing Georgia was heading for the rafters and, with the leaves covering the plant again, looked about to hatch a plot to smother the others. I'm going to wait another week or two on the East side ones, which aren't as far along.