I don't like the sound of that - lavender shouldn't go brown in the winter, apart from the flowers and the odd dead bit of wood, the leaves remain grey throughout. You say they're in a pot - if you live in a cold part of the country (you haven't told us where you are) it's possible the compost in the pot froze in winter, and if it did that for longer than about 10 days, it may have killed your plants. You will have to wait and see if any new growth appears anywhere on the bushes - pruning is carried out immediately after the first main flush of flowers by clipping off spent flowerheads and about an inch of the foliage, repeated again in early September, usually. Hard pruning is not possible on these shrubs, they do not regenerate from old wood. The other possibility is that crowding the plants together in one pot means they've died - each one really needs a pot to itself, or 2 or 3 in very, very large pots, depending on the variety of lavender.

I live in Exmouth in Devon where it is good weather certainly not much snow, however due to my ignorance I have had plant since my birthday in MaY 2010 and it is in a large pot and has spread to approx 3/4 of the top area. It was beautiful last summer and there looks to be a very small amount of green - should i perhaps just dehead it and hope for the best. Thanks very much for a prompt reply - sheila

As long as there's some green it'll probably be okay - its just you said plants plural in a big pot, rather than plant singular. If its in there on its own, that's okay. Clip off the flowerheads for now and just leave it alone, although you could give it a handful of Growmore or Vitax Q4 as a feed in about a week's time, as long as its not freezing cold. Like it is here currently... heating's running constantly this afternoon. It'll be okay to prune out any obviously dead areas in April if there are any.