The breaking of vegetative buds dormancy is essential for perennial plants. Various events are correlated to dormancy breaking and have lead to two distinct theories. On one hand, it has been shown that hormonal treatment of dormant plants, and particularly with gibberellin, leds to breaking of dormancy and this is correlated to the synthesis of several peptides, at the cellular level. On the other hand, breaking of dormancy has been correlated with chilling treatment of plants and modifications of cellular properties involved in the nutrient supply of bud. Both theories were developed separately. The actions of growth regulator on cellular metabolism in relation to dormancy breaking have not been studied extensively, yet a number of experimental data on hormonal actions on cellular systems involved in nutrient uptake and translocation are available. Some of the data may related to biochemical modifications of plasma membrane properties and activities of plasma membrane H⁺-ATPase and co-transporters activities during the release of dormancy. The aim of this review is to point out the possible links between the hormonal and trophic theories of bud dormancy breaking, and to compare data on the modification of cellular properties induced by gibberellins and cold treatments of plants. This comparison supports the hypothesis according to which gibberellins could be involved in the noted modifications induced by chilling.