For those who live in the northern parts of the world, just a reminder: unless you live in an area with remarkably fertile soil, your lawns, perennials and some of your shrubs count on some fertilizer because none of them are truly natural (they are all genetically-engineered and hybridized), nor do they receive what nature would otherwise supply them for free (rotten leaf mold, flooding silt, bear, human, and Wooly Mammoth poop, etc).
My point is that it's easy to forget that the roots wake up and begin growing and seeking nourishment long before any buds appear.
Not only that, but it takes a while for your fertilizer to get down to the roots. Time and rain. March and early April is the time to give your precious plants a good head start up here in the north country.
And, yes, this is a metaphor too.