i presumed a well grown plant.. was so juiced on fert when i bought it .... that it didnt need any fert for half the summer ...

and being a rather cheap sob ... i wasnt going to waste money feeding annuals in mid summer that were going to be dead come early fall in MI ...and i sure as heck wasnt going to pay a premium for special 'starter' fert.. thats all marketing mumbo jumbo anyway ....

potted plants.. that are watered.. and some drains out the bottom.. would get some fert.. to offset what was washed out the bottom ...

many ferts are temp released ... especially time release.. so throwing fert in my cold MI soil.. wasnt going to accomplish much of anything immediately ... anyway ...

and of course.. there is the issue of potentially burning the roots you cut .. if you over did it all ...

ken

I don't know what you mean by "starter fertz".

If you mean fertilizer applied at planting time, yes I do. I use slow-release type (Osmocote), since I'm lazy and want it to be a once-and-done job; one application will last all season in my zone.

ETA: Osmocote is applied at the soil surface and scratched in, not in the planting hole.

yes, some fertz right in the hole. The ingre. was a mix of alfa, fish, feather meal and the usual verbiage of microbes, mycorrhizae etc. Eh, figured it couldn't hurt and if it -helped- in establishement/faster bed fill, than it was worth the small price paid for the bag of it.