the pix doesn't tell you much...wellspring, you pretty much understood...to answer your question, i LOVE gardening so i'm not concerned about maintenance. the landscaper will take care of drainage...and terracing. if we do that. he is an engineer/architect/landscape guy (grin) can't really remember all his qualifications. the BIG thing i really don't know is: will i be able to communicate what i want (especially seeing i don't KNOW) AND i don't know if he is a CREATIVE person. saypoint, nothing about appearance of the house is unattractive; yard is just.....BORING. it's a 2 story, grey dutch colonial on 1/3 acre suburban lot. f.y.i. piet oudolf is appearing at the chicago cultural center on sept 27. i have visited the lurie garden (which i suppose you already know he designed for the new millenium park). i buy perennials from northwinds, who supplied oudolf with his plantings for millenium park. nandina, great idea, my husband & i are going to drive thru some of the more up-to-date neighborhoods this week. mad gallica, good point, we have the line of yews going across the foundation (grin) actually, though, i'm beginning to think more & more that i am looking for architectual design & THEN plant selection. so, what do you think....geez, maybe i should postpone the app't for awhile...this is such a big step...wish i had a better idea of what the heck i want.....phyl

Since you are "next" to the bottom, I take it that there is a lower elevation, left of your lot, that acts as an escape route for water leaving your property? There seem to be basic flaws in the grading. For example, your driveway is pitched in the wrong direction relative to the overall flow of water. Without pictures, it's hard to gauge at whether the building elevations are reasonable, or make a true fix difficult or impossible. Also, details of the lot may impact the problem but not show up in your diagram. The real fix is a proper grading. One problem with your approach, so far, is that you're asking contractors -- who may not have expertise in grading and only know how to put "band-aids" on the problem -- to design a solution for you. Each contractor will likely have a slightly different solution so it will be hard to compare one proposal to the other. And since there is no promise of being paid for the design work, the effort might not be 100%. Another problem is that the band-aids may work for a time but have failure potential. (Power can fail in a storm so sump pumps may not work ... and drains clog, especially during storms. Or a monster rain can simply overwhelm the system.) The real solution is proper grading so you need someone who is capable of creating a grading plan ... a drainage engineer, landscape architect, or possibly a grading contractor. If it turns out re-grading is too expensive, you may need to opt for the "band-aid" approach.

But there are no good starting pictures for landscape. They are either at an angle, incomplete view or too close. Stand about 25' - 30' away, in line with the front door, and take 3 slightly overlapping pictures all from the exact same position, panning from left lot line to right lot line. (Space beyond the house ends -- surroundings -- needs to show in the pictures.) Don't substitute a computer generated panorama as it will be without sufficient detail and distorted. (The distance should be similar to the sixth picture you submitted.)

where are you.. big city name.. ambient weather matters.. so give us a flavor of where you are ... he is correct ... but that appears to be way beyond what you should expect from a professional ... could we see a pic or two of the whole plants ... of course.. he has no clue how they were handled before he got them ... but that is his risk not yours ... waiting to see those extra pix .... but in the meantime i would be very unhappy about all this.. especially based on what i presume you paid him for such.... have them replaced ..imo .. on the warranty he should have given you ,.. the third pic browning is nbd.. just snip that part off.... its not really what this conversation is about ... ken