By Well yes it is. Here in California plants continue to grow albeit slower than in the normal growing season. Some trees are starting to bud and even push new leaves. Pruning certain kinds of trees now will prepare them for the aggressive spring push.
The Brazilian Rain Tree(BRT) is tough to grow here. In the south this tree will seldom lose all of its leaves. Here winter sees a near complete defoliation of the tree. Then, all the sudden, buds start popping everywhere. That moment give the opportunity to shape growth in the direction of a design. This is a most clip-and-grow species here so we cut back to buds aiming in the correct location and remove the others.
Ficus are similar in some ways. They never stopped growing and this year have never come indoors. The BRT and a dwarf jade were the only candidates to come in for a few days. My prize large ficus has been growing strong putting out new branches, leaves and thickening up the major ones. This tree had wire and during the winter put on a girth I did not expect causing some cut-in branches. I removed all that wire and trimmed it back to open up the top for more light.
I looked down to my bottom bench and found the Silver Berry budding like crazy. It is a bit early for that but what it requires is a clean up to open up for more light and air. I removed old large leaves and growth that was just going in all the wrong directions. It is good to see then nebari becoming stronger as well.
artsofjc 