Some photos and a plan showing the elevations would be helpful. It is not clear whether the run off is being absorbed on-site, or continues to drain off site. What you are talking about doing is creating a sort of french drain to slow down the run-off and percolate it into the ground. If your soils can accomodate the runoff and allow it to percolate into the soil without causing problems, this may be a solution. One thing to consider is that silts in the soil will infiltrate into gravel over time and clog its ability to drain. The more standard way to create a french drain connected to a downspout is to line the trench with filter fabric first, install several inches of drain rock, set a 4 inch diameter perforated pipe on top also wrapped with a filter fabric sock, and then continue to backfill with crushed drain rock. The filter fabric should wrap and overlap at the top so that no silts/soil may get into the gravel. The top of the trench backfilled with gravel does not necessarily need to come to the surface, and can be topped off with several inches of soil cover and sodded/planted if desired. The length of the trench, and depth of trench, and slope of pipe all need to be calculated to provide sufficient slope to drain, and capacity to handle the amount of run off. If you have heavy clay soils that don't allow much water percolation, the trench depth and length would need to be much larger to handle high rainfall events.

is it a wet ditch, or a dry ditch? and how deep is it? facing which way (ie how much sunlight, and when?) daylillies are definately a good anchor for a ditch, but if the jasmine is happy on the one side, I'd be tempted to let it spread to the other side as well, if it's doing a good job!

Bon, I have a rear tine tiller and I just till a strip about 3 or 4 ft. wide, very shallow and rake the soil to the lower side. I feather it out so it can be mowed over easily. My ditch is about 150' long, and where the pumpkin bed is there is a small pond that will let water puddle and run back under the mulch at the pumpkin growing area. In a heavy rain the pond overflows and the water runs across the pasture. This is my third year for the ditch, and by next year I want to rework it because over time it tends to fill in with decayed grass clippings. The hard work is done now and I think I can run the tiller down the center and rake it out every 3 or 4 years. Larry

I don't know how long the fence has been there, if it is over 7 years then I'm at risk of losing. I don't like involving lawyers anyways. I just watched another neighbor walk his dog into our yard so my mind is made up. I'm fencing my whole yard where the ground is stable. A drain and mulch or rock bed on our fence line will push some water to our driveway. A rock bed on the rest of the fence line will keep the water on the neighbor's property. I'm going to put the fence in between the house and the riprap drain and stop worrying about that part of the erosion. He also lets the poison oak and grass grow wild there so I'm tired of maintaining his mess. The drain at the end of the riprap will continue to overflow into his yard and I'm going to ignore that too until he decides to install the proper size of drain pipe. If he loses his fence due to erosion on my land, then he can hire a lawyer. He has not made one good decision and I'm tired of trying to fix his messes. By installing a privacy fence, I cut off access immediately so maybe my next batch of sod will have a chance for survival. Also, it will block out the poison oak and the view of his weeds and keep a dog in our yard.