The very first thing you have to do is have a solid plan in place to handle your erosion problem. It would be a monumenetal and expensive mistake to start any type of landscape construction project without first having your erosion plan as well as drainage plan in place. If this is a large job as you have stated then you should have a decent set of plans showing all your built structures along with the materials specification sheet and construction specifications. If you do not, you are not ready to start your project. How will your contractor know how to bid and effectively build your project if he does not have any specifications written up on the product that he is suppose to supply ? In regards to your contractor asking for 50 percent down. That would not fly in my state if you were a licensed and bonded contractor. It would be against the law. As a contractor in California you can only request 10 % of the cost of the job prior to starting the job. Once the job is started you can then negotiate for any type of payment schedule that you work out with the client. 50% down is a poor amount for the homeowner to negotiate. When a contractor asks for this amount it is a tell tale sign that they do not have established accounts at the local supply houses, and one has to ask the question WHY does a reputable contractor not have established accounts. It also sends a message that the contractor does not have operating overhead in his account. _ Not a good sign. As a landscape designer I work with all of my clients to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract , in this situation I would still be sitting firmly at the negotiation table. This would not be a satisfactory contract for my client to sign.

Hi bk, I wrote because I pondered doing the same thing for a couple of years before I learned enough to know better for what I wanted. There is not enough information to really help, but some things you need to be aware of are: *Your soil type: some silts are known for "self piping". That means water will find it's way out of/around anything without an impermeable liner.(I happen to have such a soil) *Run off is always uncontrolled, so you need to understand that water will try to get under/around the start of your collection point. There is really no way to avoid this, and it will require regular maintenance just like a roadside culvert. The water eats around the perimeters and it eventually has to be rebuilt. A hard and deep footer delays the onset of the erosion which will still continue, and be more severe with greater amounts of water. *Runoff is also fraught with quality issues because it is uncontrolled. You should not try to keep any expensive fish. *If you don't line the vessel (pond), you can not effectively clean it. If you are concerned about build up of water below the liner, put a drain tile below the vessel, and weight on the liner such as stone (and water of course!). *Silt coming down the drainage may be the toughest issue as you do not know how much, when, or what it contains. Washing the liner will fix the silt in pond area, but the pond will never achieve a balance. (And might not anyway due to the other charactaristics of runoff.) *It sounds like you are tampering with a natural drainage that may be regulated. One day you may be told to remove all your work. I suggest you check into this further before you start. If I "had" to do this, would go with the liner and the drain tile below the pond, capped on the upside beyond the edge of the vessel, and before the point of capture by several feet. The tile would be set in a trench lined with geotextile, and drain rock around the pipe. I would also set a footer for the collection point to hold back the dirt and guide the water to a channel onto the pond liner, with the liner coming up from the pond and over the edge of the footer as a start point/collection point. BUT-If I wanted a pond, I would build it independently of the drainage, and route the drainage around/under it with piping if that's where it "had" to be. Otherwise, I would build it on higher ground, off the drainage route entirely, and enjoy an all around, more stable situation in my pond! Using the drainage seems like a good idea at first, but the more you look into it, the less appealing it becomes if you in fact want a pond. If you really don;t want a pond, but just a place for frogs to congregate in your drainage, it can be made to work, it will just be constant physical maintenence and never be stable. -TT

Thanks, everyone. bboy, I commend you on your intuition right from the start! calliope - I think you hit it right on the head - I'm never going to move up anywhere careerwise working part-time. Until recently, I had been very intentional about working only part-time due to various family obligations. Also, my husband was pondering early retirement, so I preferred part-time work in the hopes that we could spend more time together when he retired. So I started my part-time interior landscaping business, with the intention of eventually growing that into several days a week and quitting my other part time job. My interior landscaping business is doing much better than I had hoped, but growth is stalled out now with the economy. Husband will not be retiring for quite a while, also thanks to the economy. So I'm kind of stuck. If I take a full-time job, I won't have time for my own business. If I take a part-time job, I'll never go anywhere, and the choices are much more limited. laag, I quite understand what you are saying about being pigeonholed as a laborer. I don't quite understand what you mean about "putting yourself in a position where you won't be able to do those things at a nursery as it would be a conflict" - can you elaborate, please? I have actually looked for other part-time work in a totally nongreen industry just to broaden my choices. But laag, you do have a point about making contacts. Any suggestions on what might be relevant industries to consider? I don't have a lot of current experience or interest in many other industries.

If your neighborhood has any sort of social media page, request to borrow a mower in return for home made cookies or something. It could well be that professional mowers need to service their continuing customers and fitting in a one-time gig doesn't make economic sense for them.