kerria japonica in winter

[shady zone5]

It's early for winter advice but... what do I do with my kerria japonica in the winter. Last season I didn't do a thing. Some branches extended past the snow and were eventually covered. The only branches that bloomed were the ones encased in snow through out the winter. What should I do with it this fall?

[pd]

If you want to prune it just remove old and weak growths leaving young vigorous shoots. Do this in May or June.
As for winter I don't see that you need to do anything apart from having it well tied back or otherwise supported so heavy snow does not damage the stems. Here in the UK they are perfectly hardy.
Kerria flowers on the previous years wood so you will not see all stems bearing flowers.

[shady zone5]

If you want to prune it just remove old and weak growths leaving young vigorous shoots. Do this in May or June.
As for winter I don't see that you need to do anything apart from having it well tied back or otherwise supported so heavy snow does not damage the stems. Here in the UK they are perfectly hardy.
Kerria flowers on the previous years wood so you will not see all stems bearing flowers.

I wasn't sure about the tieing back of the branches., I will try it this year.
Do you think I should tie them together and stake them up? or should I try a bring them closer to the ground? Darn garden books never tell you what to do in the winter.

[pd]

Is your Kerria free standing ? My experience of the species has been as wall shrubs where the long stems are loosely held back against the wall, trellis or other backing by fixing a tie from on side of the growth to the opposite.
In the example bellow any long growths that are produced annually would be tied back loosely to the wall and growths older than 2years removed.

[img]https://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll136/persamon/Kerriajaponicavarjaponica.jpg[/img]

[shady zone5]

Yes my plant is free standing . In my garden books it looked like the ideal shrub to replace a 4 foot rhododendron I had lost two years prior.
I have a challenging garden as it is for the most part in the shade.
Over the past 12 years I've planted numerous things with little sucess.
So now I check and recheck the books on what will survive. I gotta say the kerria in the book looked better than what I have growing. Now If I could just figure out how to protect it from montreal's deep freeze.