I would second "thistle5"s suggestion as a container addition, but I've found a twist. I have several large potted clematis that I overwinter, quite successfully, in my unheated garage (I'm in Zone 4). Last year, as a means of adding color interest, I planted some L. nummularia 'Aurea' around the base of the clematis. I was happy to find this spring that the 'Aurea' overwintered right along with the clematis and is happily rambling around the base of the potted clemmies this spring. The color contrast is great! - Becky

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.

Ironically I was JUST about to write a post about Creeping Jenny and how to get rid of it! I planted it a few years ago in a bed that I eventually decided I wanted Iris in. The Iris were beautiful the first couple of years...until the @#$%& Jenny grew all over it. Iris cannot be unexposed at the top of the rhizome, and as a result they were infested with borers this year. Now I'm going to remake the bed - took out all the iris, bleached to kill borers, and want to kill the @#$%& Jenny before I replant them. But I tried just digging it up and find the roots are impossible to get out. Any ideas on how I can completely eradicate this mistake? Will Roundup get all the roots? TIA, Westy

@floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK, my gardens are all kind of varied, really. In the more mature gardens things are kind of close, but I leave enough room for growth and my feet. Like so: That pic was taken a few weeks ago, after the irises were done but before anything else had bloomed. The Autumn Joy sedum and Purple Heart setcreasea will grow and fill in a lot within the month, but otherwise there's really just enough room for me to squeeze in between things. Then there's this garden, which is really too full for me to walk between plants: It's still kind of bare in the back, near the fence, though. But then you have this newer garden that is large, shady, and VERY sparse, and I honestly don't have any great ideas for how to fill it in: The rhodo on the left (you can barely see) and azaleas will eventually fill it in, and then I just have hostas, astilbe, and coral bells in the front. But until those bushes grow up, it's gonna look sparse. And then, of course, is the newest garden that we've talked about in other threads: It has the same issue; a baby camellia and rhododendron that should fill in about 1/3 of the garden in the next 4 or 5 years. But until then, it's gonna look sparse. (Remember that I plant to remove the mondo grass in that last pic, it just rained me out and I couldn't do it) That's why I was thinking of a ground cover; something to fill in, but isn't going to hurt my feelings when the shrubs grow in. But those shrubs are surrounded by perennials, too, and it sounds like any ground cover I choose could end up choking them out! So I guess that I'm just gonna have to rely on mulch and annuals for the next several years, at least until the shrubs grow up :-/ Unless you all have another suggestion?