Festival of Female Lynx Spiders

One reason not to whack back your plants indiscriminately in late autumn/early winter. For the sake of mere neatness you could, probably would be destroying the nests of green lynx spiders (peucetia viridans). These large spiders choose sites high up on shrubbery in my garden, presumably because there's likely to be prey there but also I think for the sunshine. These spiders move their egg sacs around, bringing them out into the sunlight to bask, moving them under a leaf in weather less fair.

If you prune off all your lynxes, there may not be any next year to bask in the sunshine of your yard. And that would be a waste of sunshine.