For any transition to work you sort of have to have overlapping clips.
This will not work:
clip 1___Clip 2
11111112222222
because the last frames of clip 1 have no information from clip 2
You could place the two clips on your timeline like this:
Clip 1_Clip 2
_____2222222
1111111________
Now clip 1 and clip 2 have a place on your timeline where they share time and DVR can work on frames from both clips at the same time and blend those frames together.
When you trim a clip you do not delete anything, you just set in/out points. Just double click on a trimmed clip to se this. When you make a transition on two clips that are butted together and where both are trimmed DVR can work on the invisible frames as overlapping frames and make transitions on them. You will se this in your timeline:
1111122222
___2211___ <-This is invisible to you and are the trimmed parts of your clips
If that makes any sense