European Gardening: hot winter - when to prune?, 1 by mike_freck

mike_freck wrote:
I buy in plants from Italy in Mid feb. Some times when i go and tag them it can be roasting hot and sometimes there is even snow. The Italians of course say its cold even when i'm walking round in a t'shirt.
These plants still get damaged in our frosts even though they have been under snow there (i lost a few wisteria a few years ago that way). They all seem to come into leaf at the exact same time as our english grown plants for instance wisteria would leaf up and flower at the same time as english bought ones.
I'm thinking there is more too it than the winter alone. I think it has something to do with general warming patterns that bring things into leaf. So warm winter weather won't matter too much as long as we do get a steady warming pattern in spring.

Hope that makes sense. lol I wanted to draw a graph or something to try and describe it.