Waterbug guy, First I will talk a little bit about concrete in water. You say it is a myth that concrete in water can kill fish and raise the PH. When concrete first sets up the surface PH is 12.0. Which is the same PH as a drain cleaner called "draino". As it is exposed to the CO2 in the air the PH goes down. But water is a very good leaching agent and so water will continue to try and get the chemicals out of the concrete. So will the PH in the water be raised? If the water has normal PH of 6.5 to 8.5 the answer is yes. The real question should be "how much will it raise it"? That question isn't easily answered as there are a lot of variables. Just to list some the age of the concrete, the condition of the concrete, is the water flowing over the concrete, the natural PH of the water, is the water being changed, and the volume of the water versus the contact area of the concrete. In some cases the rise might be so low as to make it very difficult to measure. But in other cases it can and does raise the PH to 9 to 9.5. At these levels it can and does kill fish. If I remember correctly you have stated that you are a pond contractor. If you are I hope you having started using roofing liner in the ponds that you build. Most of the time a person on this forum is never going to have a problem with roofing liner. Can there be a problem with roofing liner? This should be the question. The answer is yes. The chances that there could be a problem is very low. The largest pond product manufacturer in the US sent out a letter to all their customers a number of years ago. This letter said that all their liner in the future would be tested to be fish safe as they got a batch in that was not. In other words they were selling roofing liner as pond liner. This company had been selling a lot of liner for 10 years before this problem. If it had happen today with the wide use of the internet I would have think that some lawyer would have gotten this information and started a class action lawsuit against them and they would be out of business. The lawyer could easily have sued them not only for the cost of the liner that they had sold but for the cost to replace all those liners in the ponds built with them going back to the first time they sold this liner. The largest liner manufacturer in this country has told me that almost never would you ever have a problem with roofing liner but you might. I think that as a contractor you can't take that chance. If you were unlucky and did have a problem and were sued over that problem the lawyer handling the case would find out that they would sue for every customer that you have that has this liner. In other words you would be out of business. So is roofing liner toxic? No most of the time. But there is a small chance that there maybe a problem. I have only talked about 2 of the 8 things that you listed. I could easily talk about many of the other things listed but my point is this. You listed these things as black and white but they are not black and white. The only thing that is black and white about ponds is that all aquatic life will die. Mike

Ask the Desert Botanic Garden, and the U of A's agricultural extension service. They would have seed recommendations. You have to fence it to keep range cows out ... there might not be a grazing lease active, but if you have grass in the fences area and none in the unfenced, something is eating the grass. For fast runoff control, get those "snakes" filled with straw and place them across the runoff areas at intervals, at right angles to the flow of the water. Plant a strip just above and below the strips to get a stripe of grass going to slow the water down when the snake eventually decays. Gabions in the deeper eroded areas will slow down the water, as will brush dams. Start in the smaller erosion channels at the high points and stake bunches of brush down with forked branches (like making a beaver dam). Work your way down the channels. Multiple small dams are better than one big one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabion ************ Searching Google for Arizona Native Grasses: http://www.nativegrasses.com/info/ornamental/southwest.html http://www.lgyp.com/brochure.asp?c=294897

South San Jose reporting in. We had very heavy rain on Friday, but it cleared out and Saturday was almost nice. Not too sunny, but mild and almost balmy. I took the opportunity to get out in the garden. Spent an hour or 2 pulling all those little weedlings. They are loving all this moisture and they come out soooooooo easily with the soft ground. The Tidy Tips and Lupines have just about taken over the median strip and the TT's are budded. The Ceanothus are all budded and just a dab of color on 'Dark Star'. Washed my muddy fingers and took a stroll around the back yard. Couldn't resist doing a little pruning on the Clematis (despite my better judgement...) as all the buds are swollen to the max; some even had leaves already. Sure hope it doesn't decide to freeze again. Some of stakes were leaning because of the soggy soil and wind, but they were easy to drive in again. Sunday.....so much for the break. Rain back in full force and wind. Weatherman said showers on and off, but we didn't get and "off" and it poured most of the day. Put on the Gortex and went driving/hiking around Chesboro Dam/Uvas to see if any newts were out. Guess it was raining too hard for them too. Only found 1 and he was smashed on the road. Snow on the hilltops in front of my house this Monday morning. Supposedly a break this afternoon....we'll see. I sure feel for those folks north of SF that are getting all the flooding, but it is nice to get some rain. wanda

I joined the swap before the deadline but forgot to post my list. Here it is: Gaura: Sparkle White, Whirling Butterflies, Crimson Butterflies, Rosy Jane Salvias: Amistad, Caradonna, Pozo Blue, reptans, penstemonoides, sinaloensis, chaemadroides, darcyi-any salvias that are hardy in zone 8 Scabiosa-perennial (Fama, Butterfly Blue etc) Sedum- Sunsparkler series, Touchdown series, Marina, Mr. Goodbud, Thunderhead, Thundercloud Abutilon megapatmican (hardy) Heliopsis: Burning Hearts or Bleeding Hearts Shasta Daisies: Real Series, yellow/cream colored, or dwarf Bergenia Snapdragons-tall annual snapdragons, or perennial snapdragons Maianthemum (false Solomon's seal) Belamcanda "Hello Yellow" Pardancanda (any) Melampodium paludosum (annual) or leucanthum (perennial) Gladiolus-dalenii (parrot gladiolus) or other small flowered or species glads Dianthus Romance series, any hardy Dianthus Nepeta "Neptune", "Cats Pajamas', 'Little Trudy' or any tidy cultivar Petunias Japanese Iris or other species Irises, Euphorbias (any ornamental) Penstemon pinifolius Geraniums-perennial only Coleus (any) Perennial or annuals that will grow in clayey soil and tolerate heat-for sun or shade