This year I find myself moving some annuals planted in Early May. Maybe even late April.

Generally IME, any of my annual plantings don't really seem to -take off- until mid June, when the heat start to kick in, stems, leaves, etc develop. But I have always observed more leaves, thicker stem elongation during this time. The ones that seem to develop this best is the ones in partial shade. The ones in full sun from Morning to Mid-Later Afternoon, don't develop much until roots develop. I suspect these full sun sitings are a transplant shock from nusery grown. I generally aim to plant them earlier , to let roots establish. Some of these full sun sightings, I'm used to seeing the leaves get either cold burned or transplant shock will crispy leaves but they always recover once the heat + time/root system builds up.

I moved/transplanted 4 around today, as others got eaten to death by slugs and were missing holes in the flower bed fill .....While the rootball has increased, it has not -increased- by as much as I would have thought. Am I looking at this wrong and maybe there were much finer roots that I did not observe, when I dug them up during transplanting ? Aka, my observation is based on the root ball mass/soil it holds after I dig/make a hold around the rootball I plan to to move. I did make a pretty decent wide and deep berth with the trowel in the attempt to keep as much roots as possible