Stop Fertilizing These Plants Before Winter — You May Be Encouraging the Wrong Growth

Late nitrogen can encourage tender new growth just as many perennials, roses, trees and shrubs should be hardening off for winter. Check the plant and soil before assuming a final fall feeding will help. Marina Demidiuk/Shutterstock

It seems logical that giving plants one final meal before winter would help them survive the cold, but the opposite can happen when fertilizer encourages growth at exactly the wrong time. As days shorten and temperatures fall, perennial and woody plants begin hardening off, a process that prepares living tissue to withstand winter conditions. Penn State explains that fertilization before plants are fully dormant can interfere with this process by stimulating tender new growth that is more vulnerable to winter damage. That makes fertilizing plants before winter less about giving everything one last scoop from the fertilizer bag and more about understanding which plants should be allowed to slow down. Before spreading leftover fertilizer around the landscape this fall, these are the plants where restraint may actually provide better protection.

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