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.

Im going back defending MGS for colder zones... Some of you in zone 4 are saying you will not try this now.... MGs are basically harmless in colder zones.. IVE never had a mature seed pod in 5 years of growing several types of MGS... They will not regrow from their roots in our zone... They are a great vigorous vine to use in alot of different ways, with wonderful results! GO MGS! BTW I feel like this could be the same argument with honeysuckle vine LOL! I know people willing to come up and rip it up with thier bare hands, but again, here in the north, it is slow to establish and doesnt get out of bounds, in fact some varieties die back a little each year... BUT THATS another argument! NOW Bindweed is different, bindweed is a smaller pinkish MG style flower that can be invasive. I doubt many of you are wintersowing that however! Silverkelt

Well, it certainly sounds like they haven't learned anything if they're replacing one monoculture with another. I live in the Detroit suburbs. Emerald Ash Borer was first found in North America in Plymouth/Canton Michigan, about 25 miles south of my house. Within a few years, it totally decimated ash trees in SE Michigan, and ash was widely planted as a lawn/street tree as well as a dominant species in many of our hardwood forests. The holes in the landscape are very visible -- entire older neighborhoods were often planted in ash monocultures and became suddenly treeless. At least many of the municipalities around here learned the lesson that biodiversity is good. Three cities here, in particular, Keego Harbor, Orchard Lake, and Troy, Michigan, have impressed me with the wide diversity of tree species planted, included a number of pretty uncommon ones like Hardy Rubber Tree and Amur Maackia.

The problem with pampas grass is usually in how it's used. It is a big...big grass! Planting such a big grass in a tight corner or alongside a house, or clustered into a landscaping is going to result in lots of sweat when digging up down the road. Pampas has a place in landscapes that can handle a specimen of that size. Also, in areas where it is not invasive. In your area, you can try Miscanthus, Panicum, Erianthus. I planted a cortaderia in a whiskey barrel. In 3 years it had engulfed the whiskey barrel and was firmly grounded as well. Don't try to make this grass into something it's not...plenty of other grasses out there to try.