What to do with this Anenome?

[RainbowHash]

Hello, novice gardener here. I have this potted anemone which looks completely dead... except it isn't!! I can see some very tiny new shoots starting to peep out. I'm utterly thrilled because I thought it was dead. But, what do I do with the old, dry, dead looking stalks? Do I trim the dead bits out? And is there any special food or compost I should give it to keep it happy? Thanks in advance!

Trim it back and in middle March add some fresh compost. This can be done by lifting out of the pot, shake off the dead soil and replace with fresh. They are tough as old boots, don’t need feeding, but do better in Shade.

Brilliant, will do. Thanks so much!

It's doing what it's supposed to do. The above ground stuff will die back every autumn, then in the spring it puts forth new shoots using the food that it has stored in its roots. A lot of herbaceous perennials do that.

I'm sure it's fine - mine are all below ground at the moment, planning their next campaign to conquer the entire shady side of the garden 🙈

I'm also new to all this. I've gone with snapping of all dead wood and leaving the healthy bits. I'm so excited seeing them all come back to life. It's very Lazarus.

I remember the same happening with a fuschia. Only a few years ago. I had no idea that plants came back to life from a dead looking stick! I love gardening now, I think that was the start of it.

Any plants that live in a habitat where one part of the year is inhospitable find ways to sit out the unfavourable season. In temperate regions winter can be pretty dire - too cold and/or not enough light for really useful photosynthesis. So instead of shedding their old leaves a few at a time all through the year like tropical trees, most of our trees ditch the whole lot at the beginning of winter and start with a complete new set in spring. And plants which don't have such a solid above ground infrastructure, like fuchsias and anemones take it one step farther and die back to ground level (Fuchsias don't bother to die right back if the winter isn't that cold - that's why you get such huge fuchsias in Ireland).

Bulbs, tubers, corms and rhizomes are taking this one step further, with a good storage organ underground so the plants can get going quickly in spring with early flowers to get first in the queue for pollinators.

Once you get to the Mediterranean and Middle East, the "dead" season isn't winter, it's the summer drought, but the same principle applies. Hence Cyclamen hederifolium, for example, which passes summer as a corm, and bursts into flower in autumn.