When is the best time to do spring cleanup and prune our bushes, roses, grasses, and so on? It seems like our main purpose for doing it early is looks — keeping up with the Joneses.
Let's talk about the negative. Often times, there is no thought given to the health of the plant. Being good stewards and getting it done first isn't always being a good steward.
There is a high likelihood that a high percentage of Knockout roses that were pruned early will be damaged by a late freeze. Also, ornamental grasses can be susceptible to late freezes after they are cut off.
Someone recently told me that Knockout Roses will freeze back from the prune location the same amount that they freeze back during the winter. So what they were saying is, if they were not pruned before a late freeze, there would be almost no damage. But if they get pruned early and we get a hard late freeze, they may freeze back another winter's worth with one late freeze.
Often times while doing spring cleanups, I am amazed at the tender young shoots that are growing up underneath that unsightly trash — last year's vegetation, last fall's leaves that blew in. When we rake and blow that off, it must feel like someone jerked the covers off early in the morning when you are snug in a warm bed. That unsightly trash is a protector against late spring freezes.
Am I making my point clear? Sometimes, there is quite a negative plant health aspect that comes with peer pressure.
We landscapers aren't guilt free either. If we can get spring cleanups done early, it frees our schedule up later when other things break loose, like first time mowing grass and applying crabgrass preventer.
To summarize, I am not against early spring cleanups. I am just opening our eyes to a largely overlooked negative effect of getting too much in a hurry.