This is a bud with potential. Many times the size of the paired sidebuds, the pointed terminal bud of this young horsechestnut tree promises big things. The side buds wlll definitely develop into leaves, whereas the terminal bud is more likely to develop into a vertical panicle of showy flowers. 

Horsechestnuts flower in mid-Spring, so there's not long to wait.

By the end of Winter, there are so many chores in the garden that pruning happens whether or not the plant needs it that particular week (or month), or whether the plant's pre-pruning show is over (or not). Five minutes with no label on them? Bam! Another shrub (that needs it) gets cut to the ground. If not now, there might not be another five minutes the rest of the year.

That's what happened with this red-twigged, gold-foliaged Siberian dogwood. In 2012 there just wasn't time to provide what it craves the most: An unrelenting massacre in early Spring. Late Winter in 2013? High time, indeed.

In January, the foliage of big-leaf bamboo was still laughing at Winter—or, at least, in its noisy rustling in the wind, chuckling about it. By late March, the party's over. The enormous leaves have relinquished much of their water, turning parchment-white in the process.

Not a great look, but the solution is easy: Cutting all the canes in the colony to the ground.