I have one of these in my perennial garden, and it's been good for 3 years now. I have to disagree that putting them in standing water is good. They do like moisture, but not soaking wet. Basically they can't be left to dry out between waterings, so they need help during dry summers. I wouldn't suggest potting them in containers, because they are very tempermental, in that if you let it go dry, it dies. Likewise, if you were to intentionally leave perched water in the pot, it will rot. Also, it will not survive the winter in a pot if left outside. The only tip I can give is to plant it in an area with partial to full sun, with rich soil, ample moisture, and MULCH. Mulch is a must if you want to succeed with cardinal flowers. Joe

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.

Hi Ray and Gwen, Here in Oz a lot of the native garden plants can't stand getting "wet feet". Classic examples would be banksias, grevilleas and waratahs, along with their proteaceaous relatives from South Africa, often grown in areas with rainfall that can be extremely high for short periods, even if not in total over a whole year. Standard practice is to build mounds when you want to plant these on clay or other badly drained soils, to the extent of getting in truck loads of broken up rock and sandy fill and hiring a bit of light earth-moving equipment if necessary to mound up big areas. If you want to get into a good few broms, I reckon this mounding approach would be definitely worth a thought. Either that or leaving them in pots just sitting on the surface of the ground, maybe with chipped bark or other coarse mulch mounded up around them to keep them upright and shield them from the sun. Re sinking pots into heavy clay soil, I would have thought that would be like sitting each one in its own little swimming pool, so probably not such a good idea unless they can drain out quickly down a steep slope. Hope this helps. Cheers, Paul

Some plants I have in wet, shady conditions are Mimulus lewisii (monkey flower - 1st pic below), Cuphea llavea 'Tiny Mice' (bat-faced Cuphea - actually in my creek - 2nd pic below), several mints (contained and planted), Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' (Japanese forest grass), Tradescantia spathacea 'Vittata' (Moses-in-the-cradle), and T. virginiana 'Miss Kate' (spiderwort). Brenda