Hello, I'm a new home owner and have never really done any gardening so appreciate your patience and help in identifying these plants so that I can properly care for them. This is plant that has new "buds" on it. After taking this photo I did remove the dead stalks--hope that was okay.
It is a Sedum.It will flower again later in the year. The dead flower stalks are from last autumn.Possibly Sedum spectabile. http://images.google.com/imgres?img...microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SUNA&sa=N
It's perfectly alright to remove the dead stalks. The plant dies back to the ground level in the fall, that's usually when I remove all the dead foliage so when it begins it's spring growth there's no ugly dead stalks in the way.
