Did you plant these in end of May/June? I always plant water/shade lovers like these in cool weather. Planting them in early Summer in Texas is your problem . They have gone from planting stress immediately to heat stress and not having any time to establish deep water delivering roots.. How much sun does it get? I can't really tell you how long it will take to establish. I do not know your ground or how growing conditions in Houston. My suspicions are that you will have stalled plants no matter what you do till it turns cooler. If it is getting sun, I would put up some cardboard baffles to protect it. Can you put in a temporary soaker hoses? I combine them with a manual timer and that saves gobs of time hand holding a hose.

Very interesting post, everyone ~ Thank You. We've come to the same conclusion in Ontario, Canada. The back yard is luscious and green in any drought condition. We also like the smell. The entire back yard is surrounded by patio or garden. The creeper will grow in runners over top the stone and mulch. Two or three times a year, we simply pull it out, from the perimiter of the lawn, to maintain the edge and prevent spreading. Grass still grows around the creeper, throughout the yard, so the lawn is beautiful. We've slowly come to the conclusion that dandelions aren't growning in the back yard... No other weeds, but creeper and grass. The front yard, on the other hand, is a different story. We live beside a park, and the city maintenance crews and snow plows make a mess of the first 8 feet in... Plus, the city maintained park does not use herbicides, so the dandelions, and other weeds we can't even identify, are rampant. Not to mention people walking their dogs that think it's acceptable to let their pets use the lawn as a toilet. This morning, we thought of the brilliant idea to transplant creeper along the edge of the front yard, and let it go.... "Can't be any worse than what we're already looking at..." So, after searching the web, and finding hundreds of sites detailing how to control it (instead of enjoy it), we finally found you! (Now we know we're not crazy.) So, the plan is to pull out some runners, and simply place them on fresh, black earth, raked into the ruts at the edge of the lawn... We'll try a couple of shallow shovel fulls of creeper, too... We'll keep you posted.

I am not quite sure what you mean by marking everything? Do you mean rubbing their face or actually spraying items? There is a huge difference between the 2 and if they are spraying that is the owners fault for not having them fixed. You can also have the vet put them on prozac. I would also be disgusted by that. I have quite a few cats always have, always will and I can honestly tell you what you are describing is not the norm and no I am not delusional. It just sounds like you don't like them which is fine and is your choice. You lumping all smoker's into a group who smoke around babies or in smoke free environments or all cat owners having cats constantly marking everything seems a bit irrational and delusional. While you will find many people like that, you will find many more who aren't. That would be like me lumping all people who have a cocktail at dinner or stop at a bar on the way home for a cocktail as drunk drivers.

I'm against cages for any long-term stay. (I dislike zoos for similar reasons.) Is life in a cage any sort of life at all? I realize they are necessary in cat and dog shelters, but it sure doesn't make me a fan of those places. I feel sad when I see a fish in a bowl or lots of fish in an aquarium -- they continually circle just like the pathetic zoo animals because they are bored. Same goes for birds in a cage. It just isn't normal. If the shelter animals could be adopted in a couple of weeks, a cage would be acceptable to me.