detroit radio guy.. said we are 3 weeks late on spring temps ...

soil has to warm ... down thru the whole root mass .. for a plant of any kind to come out of dormancy ... what really seems to trigger growth .. is the first good warm rain ... that carries warmth deep ... but crikey.. last week.. we finally had some rain.. interspersed with snow.. lol ...

obviously.. pots warm much faster ...thru the whole root zone ...

day time air temps are not relevant ... as soil warming at depth.. has more to do with night temps ... how much warmth is lost every night ...

time release.. is heat related release.. and probably useless in spring.. as it will not warm enough to trigger release for weeks.. if not months ...

i always wonder why you refuse to tell us where you are.. in every post ...

ken

Both sets are the same particular kind of box?

Yes, same box. All started out in 3G pots. The ones that remain in pots (currently 15G Fabric Pots). Most of them are in dirt. The ones that remain in pots were just extras. green velvets grow extremely slow, so it's a nice surprise to see all the pots with a nice flush of new leaves on the entire shrub. Hoping, waiting for the in ground to do the same...

k_a_m. Not sure what the deal is but my zone has been listed in my profile

Alan, most folks aren’t going to click on your name to check your profile in case you wrote your location there. Here is how to get it into your profile in such a way that it posts automatically next to your name.

Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone.

If you add info on your state or the nearest large city either here or on the profile page under the name posted, you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures.

Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.

Houzz really doesn’t make it easy, but if you have location info in your posts, the feedback you get will be far more useful.

If you only list the zone, then people will still have to ask you for a location since the zone information only really doesn't tell us a lot. However, combined with a state or large city, then people will have an idea of your annual rainfall, first and last frost dates, average annual high temperatures and a lot more information about how plants will do for you. *None* of that information is embedded in simply the USDA zone.

containers on top of the ground are more subject to fluctuations of temp than the same plant in the ground. we can argue degree days and daytime temp vs nighttime temp to no real avail...but a container on top of the ground, getting any kind of sun in the spring, is going to "wake up" much sooner than anything planted.

On top of that, you fertilized the container and not the one in the ground. then you ask why the one that got fertilizer is growing?

Nuff said.