Beginner Gardening: Spring clean up questions, 1 by Noreaster

Noreaster wrote:
That's strange- I had posted a response before that one with the pic...I must not have hit send after the preview. Anyway, what I said was that I went out yesterday and tried to loosen/remove a lot of the leaves. I was afraid that the weight of them was crushing the plant. I did see a branch (cane?) that had broken in half, and one of those leaf/bud tips had broken off on another stem. Hoping there is not a lot more of that when I completely uncover it. I don't think I'll do the leaf thing again next year- have to find another method, if anything. I piled some dry leaves loosely back on top, since light snow was in the forecast. I was kind of concerned that the stems looked rather sickly, though I don't know what they are supposed to look like. The ones I see from walking around the neighborhood are more mature plants, and they are just pale colored stalks with dark buds up and down them...no sign of life as far as I can tell- and these are unprotected, so maybe they are another variety altogether. Mine has some signs of life, so I'm still not entirely sure when I should completely expose it.