I'm thinking it wasn't a good idea to use the pics of last year's flooding, because that was very much NOT a typical event. It's also clear that in the interest of trying to not bog down my question with too much information, I left open too much for interpretation. There is a storm drain located just around the lower left corner of the flood picture. Clearly it's not working well, and I'm addressing that with public works. The storm drain directly across the street works great. Much of the water on my property actually comes from the far side of my property, not shown in this picture -- if you went through the gate that's behind my granddaughter in that flood picture and walked straight over to the other side of the fence, the lot on that direction is very large, and there is just enough slope from back in there yard to way over by the side street shown in the pic that when we have a hard rain you can go in the yard and watch the water rushing over my yard. So it's actually exactly oppposite from what it looks like -- water doesn't come in from the street, it comes from the opposite side and stops at the street. Another of the problems we're addressing is grading the back yard to try and get THAT neighbor's runoff to stay in their yard. What happens during a "normal" very heavy rain (as opposed to the 12" we got the day of last year's flood) is that the water comes from all directions and tends to pool right where you see my granddaughter standing, which is at the top end of an old swale which goes to the storm drain - that's why it seems so deep there: she's standing in the deepest part of the swale. But that swale has gotten built up with dirt over the years as you get closer to the drain, and so the water backs up there at the gate. Getting that swale dug back out is yet another of the things we're addressing. Here are some pictures that show the area dry: The right side of our driveway, showing the difference in height between my neighbor's property and my driveway. The same side of the driveway, taken from next to the shed. This is the left side of the garage, where water pools the most during a hard rain. If you look through the gate to the fence in the background, the lot behind that fence is where much of the water flows from. FYI, the gutter was installed today - it used to have the downspout back by the gate, right where the problems were the worst, so we put in a new one that discharges on the opposite side, and someone is coming out this week to route it to a drywell. So, to summarize: We have water coming from the far side of our yard, flowing across our yard. We're grading there to cut that down. We have an insufficiently functioning storm drain. We're working with Public Works. We have an old swale that no longer is sloped the way it should, so water stops there by the side of the garage. We're digging that out and reshaping it to let water flow the way it's supposed to. AND we have a neighbor to the side of our driveway whose lot is significantly higher than ours, and whose downspouts are tied into pipes that discharge right at our property line so that most of his roof runoff comes onto my property. There is no code preventing him from doing that and I'm not willing to drag him into civil court, so I'm trying to deal with it on my side of the property. THAT aspect of our stormwater problems is what my original email was all about. Sorry for confusing things so thoroughly by not explaining all the sources for the flood waters I showed, and for not making it very clear that this picture is NOT our typical problem; I had mistakenly thought it would be a good picture just to illustrate the difference in height of my property vs. this rear neighbor's lot, now I realize it confused things considerably. Maybe I should just ditch this thread and start all over...

People plant shade tolerant flowers under apple trees all the time. If you aren't using insecticides you have less to worry about as far as flowers being in bloom at time of application- this can be an issue which I sometimes solve with the use of tarps. I much prefer managing trees where the understory has no blooming plants at usual time of application. It would probably be a good idea to wait until trees are established for at least one growing season before introducing competing roots within about 3' of trunks. You'd better be careful how you prune if you expect those apple varieties to fruit well in such restricted space. Holding back water may also be useful in coaxing trees into production in confined space but this will limit your choices of plants to be grown in their vicinity. I guess the Dave Wilson website has advice on how you can keep the trees in limited space without limiting fruitfulness. I'm saying this without specific knowledge of your varieties, but 111 wants to grow a bigger tree than you do with any but least vigorous varieties.

Our wall was finished up today, so I thought I should follow up on this in case someone finds it later so this isn't just left "hanging". I also wanted to share pictures because we're so excited about it. Now, ever since we moved into this house, we have had serious flooding issues out front due to the poor street paving work we were left with (Thanks, City of Atlanta!) Then there was the stupid mound in front of the house which didn't do much of anything worthwhile except collect weeds. Any time we rec'd any significant downpour (more than a half an inch in 1-2 hours), the result was a "lake" in front of the house that left us unable to park. It would fill up until it reached our sidewalk, at which time it would overflow down the sidewalk, right down into our beds, which resulted in the death of several salvia last year due to waterlogging. When I say "lake", I'm not kidding....this is at least 6"-8" deep: Well, after posting this thread, we (unexpectedly) got a solid contractor lead from it, and the real green light was a solid reference for this contractor we'd received from another member (thanks, GGG, for everything!) The contractor we chose was GW member 'vroomp', or Brad in real life, and his company DCR, Inc. I was not kidding about the previous contractors we contacted above over the past couple of years - if we got a call back, most wouldn't show up, and this led to so much delay. It was amazing - out of probably three dozen phone calls to Brad, the only time he didn't actually pick up was on a Sunday at 9pm, and, really, I wouldn't have answered either! He was literally at our house within a day or two to walk through the plans and give us options, hash out ideas, toss out suggestions. It was quite refreshing, a huge change from what we were accustomed to. What started out as a small 30'-40' wall wound up finding its way up to 62', and then almost 75' .... our fault, of course - the neighbors wanted to join forces and have the wall spread between both yards. I imagine we were the nightmare customers from hell - changing lengths, changing shapes, took us a while to pick out the stone, we couldn't decide on lighting or drains, etc. Through the process, Brad was really communicative and very sensitive to issues and changes we needed to make along the way, and *incredibly* respectful of our budgeting desires, and held his cool even when our neighbors and I couldn't get our crap straight on budgeting (again - thanks Brad!!) We got everything sorted out. He even tossed in a couple of extras including sealing the back of the wall and adding an additional drain for the neighbors, which was not in the original plan. The end result is bigger and better than we'd expected, and the wall has already become a fixture to hang out on and chat with the neighbors and relax with friends, rivalled only by our deck. For pictures of our flooding issues and the mound itself, in all of its (ha ha) glory, check out this gallery page For a couple more pictures of the mound, and the wall before and after it was veneered out, check out this gallery page Since the wall was constructed, we have not had a single issue with flooding, in fact, the drain works like a champ and the sea outs we have growing at the base of our rather steep yard's slope (back/rear of the house) couldn't be happier about the additional water. All in all, the pictures speak for themselves, but I really felt it was necessary to come in and share my experience. I know this was a small job for Brad in comparison to what he's accustomed to, but we're really grateful for his taking it on, and regardless of how small it was, he treated us as if we were spending ten times what we actually did (and again - if you're reading this - THANKS.) We've already sent two of our friends his way, and they've had good experiences as well. I'll post more pictures of the wall in this thread as it gets planted out. We're waiting on stone to revive/refurb the original granite curb that exists throughout our neighborhood, and some fill dirt and mulch to bring the soil level up just a tad. The ultimate goal is to fill/amend, landscape mat, then plant with edibles...cherry and plum trees, blueberries, cranberries and several natives for the fill-in between. The end result:

Main Street Garden, I have quite the assortment, rabbits, ground squirrels and roof rats, and I'm not sure which of them causes the most damage. rifis, I can't be sure about the fencing of this particular rose, but with others they actually lift up the fencing and go under, so nothing has really worked. On roses that had only the plastic fencing they've managed to remove the whole thing and it will be lying on the ground next to the rose. Talk about an act of defiance! K S, I'm sorry to say that Potter and Moore is not fragrant, and that no doubt is the reason it's been discontinued. I don't require that all of my roses be fragrant, and some in fact will be too much for me when I bring them inside, but I imagine fragrance is a big plus for many if not most people.