I would agree with nandina that there are some civil engineers that will be the most qualified to deal with your problem. But before you make that call, I suggest you know two things; which is the best engineer for your situation and what you hope that engineer will do for you. There are good engineers and also those that are incompetent. There are good engineers that won't have expertise in the area you need. There are good engineers that will have a conflict of interest, some of which will rightfully refuse you as a client and those that will take your money anyway. There are three things you might hire an engineer to do: 1. Complete a set of plans that will fix your problem. 2. Do an analysis and advise you of the situation such that you can make the best decision as to what course of action to follow. 3. Provide expertise and expert testimony for a legal team in an action to recover damages from someone. The best engineer to do one of the above is unlikely to be the best for the other items. Choose wisely, an engineers time does not come cheap, even if s/he is not being effective. Considering item #1, a project to fix your problem. You have not been very specific as to what your problem is, an unstable slope or flooding. Often serious problems of this nature require large sums to fix. I have to ask, if the fix is greater than you can afford, will a set of plans that you can't complete be of any use to you, or just wasted money? Let's look at what might happen if you call a qualified engineer. He comes out to your property, looks around, racks up a few billable hours, and sets an appointment at his office. Later at his office your are presented with a contract for services estimated at $5,000.00 on a project likely to cost $30,000.00 If you can't go forward you will be asked to pay the account to date. 2. When you call, the engineer is aware of the problems of that area. A lot of his practice may be with land developers of the area and taking a minor client that might put him in a position of criticizing past or future clients will not be in his interest. Especially if the situation may lead to litigation. Or maybe he knows that there will not be any economically justifiable fix for the problem. So he refuses you as a client or starts then makes his fee unaffordable (see #1 above). 3. You call a qualified engineer that does not have a conflict of interest and doesn't waste his clients money. This guy is not going to come out to your property. It's likely he will grant you a short interview to present your problem. He will invite you to bring photos, lot survey plat, and any other documents that might have information about the situation to be combined with any in-house data he may already have, such as topo maps. After hearing you, he will explain what services he can provide and what the likely cost will be. If you don't hire him or he refuses the work, you wont get much of a bill if any. If you choose to go forward he will send technicians to the site to gather the data he will need. Only when he has real data to work from will he start billing you for his expensive time. You should seek to bring the very best and most complete information to the interview that you can provide. Until I have time to write more, here is some homework to do: Go to the County Clerk, El Paso County and ask to see the subdivision plat (Volume 77, Page 86, Plat Records). Take your camera with you and take photos of the plat and close ups of the plat title block, the engineers stamp and name, your lot, any plat notes, and anything that is an approval by the City or County government.

It will be best to fill, if possible, the low areas causing the sporatic standing water area. Spread good draining sandy loam top soil before spending lots of time, effort, and money trying to get anything to grow there. You might also need to excavate enough down slope or shallow trenches for any surface water, which still runs off to that area, to drain away. In silty loam and/or high clay content soils, hardpan sounds like an appropriate description for low areas which stay wet for a while after soaking rain events, but which often also become bone dry between such rain events. I own a lot with the same situation as mickeddie describes. Even the Heritage River Birch tree I planted there has struggled. When planting that tree I found the silty loam soil to be hard compacted from frequent standing water episodes. The ground was so hard that digging a proper planting hole and installing the stakes for that 10 gallon potted sized tree nearly wore me out. In the 2005 summer through 2006 winter dry periods, the birch tree dropped its leaves and died back almost to the ground. Toward the end of last year's summer drought period I had about 12 dump truck loads of a good sandy loam top soil spread to fill the low areas causing the water to settle in that area. I thought the birch tree would surely die when the next heavy rain event washed almost 6 inches of that fresh non-compacted soil over the root ball of my struggling birch tree. Surprisingly, now the birch tree is recovering nicely. The tree has spread it's roots into that washed in sandy loam top soil and is doing so well; it appears promising that the birch will survive to become a beautiful tree. Standing water no longer lingers around that birch tree, but the soil does remain damp a few days longer than the rest of the lot.

Thats a really nice looking tree, but it might be out of its hardiness zone here. I did read that the cold is not the problem but rather ice. We do tend to get ice storms here as I'm not that far from the coast. Still, given a sheltered spot this would be one to consider. Thanks!

The Miscanthus is behind the daisies which are Anthemis Susannah Mitchell, which is short with small button blossoms. If you can see a little pink on the right, that is a Knock Out Rose next to the Miscanthus, which hasn't had a yellow leaf on it through this dry spell and last year was the last thing blooming in my yard. The Pennisetum Hamlin is very tame and fits right under that BBush. There are a few others that are taller that are nice. Have you seen the pink blossomed 'Karley Rose'? It is just a little larger than the Hamelin. There is also one called Moudry which I think is gorgeous. BTW, here in zone 5/6 I have not seen a seedling from my Pennisetum. I saw a great combo in someone's front yard... Hardy Hibiscus, Shasta Daisies and Joe Pye Weed with Miscanthus gracillimus. It gets huge and probably wouldn't work for you dtd. But the pretty Pink Hardy Hibiscus, with the Joe Pye Weed was eyecatching. Here is that P. Moudry, wish I had room for that! :-) I just love tabs on a browser, don't you? [g] Nandina are very pretty. They have fall color too, right? Bluestem is great and I wish I had room to grow it. I also love Indian Grass which I didn't dare plant so I put it in a pot this year..lol. Not exactly happy there. [g] You know you are talking about prairie plants there dtd! :-) I see from your OP that you mentioned Joe Pye Weed there already that might be staying. I measured my 'Little Joe' just now and it is about to bloom and stands 45" high. First year in, so don't know if it will get larger. I also measured the bed my Butterfly Bush is in and it is 7ft deep at the point the BBush is planted. I did plant it forward, because my neighbor has an evergreen on the other side of the fence that hangs over a good foot and a half. There are about 5 trees right along my fence line behind that whole bed, so that BBush has to deal with dry conditions for sure. I just looked up 'The Blues'...isn't that so pretty! I came across a grass comparison chart in my travels and posted the link below for anyone interested. Here is a link that might be useful: Grasses comparison chart