You shouldn’t stop watering your plants in the winter, even though they may be drought-tolerant, and even though the ground may be frozen or they seem to be dormant.
Okay, your plants are dormant. It looks like nothing is going on. If they’re deciduous or herbaceous perennials, they’ve lost their foliage, and, except for the presence of any evergreens, everything is brown and lifeless.
But there is a lot going. It’s just not happening above ground. Roots are still expanding and growing, taking in soluble molecules of nutrients and cells in the roots other parts of the plant below ground are concentrating sugars and producing amino acids and other chemicals necessary for the plant’s continued life.
Even if you have mild or almost non-existent winters (as occurs in southern parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and Mexico) many plants still have a period of dormancy.
If the ground is frozen, the temptation is to forego watering the plants until it thaws. But even frozen soil will absorb water.
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