When you wintersow shrubs should you separate out the seedlings, or will they grow ok in a clump? I have seedlings of the following shrubs in clumps already in the ground from last year: Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus), Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles japonica), and Caryopteris. Now I'm going to move them and am wondering if I should try to separate them in the process. They will be in temporary locations until they get to be a good size.

My thinking was that with shrubs that sucker anyways there are many stems coming from the ground so I might get a big shrub quicker leaving them as clumps. But now I'm wondering if that is not a good idea since they are each genetically different and not just suckers of the same plant. Maybe each seedling will look different or maybe there is too much root competition?

I plant everything else in clumps, but is it okay to do the same with shrubs?