First off, fire your Landscape Architect. Anyone who would suggest a dry well for this situation doesn't have a clue. Next, familiarize yourself with basic North Carolina law on surface drainage. North Carolina follows a modification of the Civil Law of Drainage; the Reasonable Use Rule, with the landmark case being Pendergrast v. Aiken. The following links may be helpful: http://www.cabarruscounty.us/SandWenvironmentalbulletin.html http://sogweb.sog.unc.edu/Water/index.php/Pendergrast_v._Aiken For professional help, select a Professional Engineer or Surveyor who has experience in drainage. Give much consideration to one who has court experience as a expert witness on drainage. Not many of them will have knowledge of drainage law, and in your case this is important. These people don't come cheap. If you cannot afford them, the process for a DIY fix or action against your neighbor begins with the development of an accurate base map of the properties.

I have been admiring jeannie_kitchen 's kitchen and actually send her photo to my kd today. We also have 12' ceiling with coffers/beams, and I like the look of your cabinets. Are your cabinets 42/18 stacked or some other configuration? Are you cabinets custom or from a manufactured line? I love everything about your kitchen!

On the ceiling, what kind of plywood did you use? usually luan is cheapest good looking plywood in HD, so that's what I have used mostly. Did you paint the designs with a brush or stencil them? stained designs are painted with a very small brush. How did you keep the stain from bleeding out to surrounding areas? Fist I make a stencil and trace the design with pencil and then fill in with stain, making sure that I have very little stain on the brush. What brand of stain did you use? I have always used Minwax --------------------------------------- wondering what to do with them. I would love to do this! Have you written up any instructions for how you did it? Or could you tell us please? What product(s) did you use? Decosup How did you transfer your design to the concrete? I drew the design on the floor with pencil based on smaller scale design on the paper Did you mask off areas? it was not necessary, as My husband cut the lines around the design before I stained and that prevented most of the bleeding issues. How did you apply the product? with the cheap foam brushes from HD What do's and don't's did you learn along the way? Don't too it on a hot day, the stain dries too quickly and you will not get as deep color. Thanks very much for any help you can give me! Where did you learn to do all this? Trial and error ;) Do you do this type of work for your job? Not yet at least, I have thought about doing it professionally but I am really lousy sales person, so this might for ever be just my obsession and hobby :) PS. I have a long e-mail I send to people that ask about my concrete work, so if you want to receive it, drop me an e-mail.

Lisa, I think you will have great success with Lady Ashe. All climbers take their time getting going. Go with the flow. It seems at first they are duds, but watch out, they are slow to mature, like large/giant breed dogs. Climbers are famous for a huge spring flush followed by a disappointing show for the rest of the flowering season. Lady Ashe is a work horse regarding strong follow up flushes, unlike any other climber I know of. I think a strong hybrid tea presence in Lady Ashe's ancestry is why. Lady Ashe apparently has hybrid tea genes in her background. I say this because after her first flush of the season, during which blooms come in clusters of 3-4 buds, the following flushes are 95% one gorgeous bloom per approximately 16" long, straight stem. They are perfect for cutting, unlike so many climbers' blooms which either nod or have very short necks. Also, Lady Ashe has excellent petal substance, a high petal count with high centered, layer cake blooms. Her lateral flower stems are like rebar, stiff and strong. Her new basal canes are flexible when young, and easy to train, but once mature, be prepared to have a small battle trying to he some cooperation out of them. The flowers never, ever nod. They also last a long time on the bush and equivalently so in the vase. My Lady Ashe is mature now, at year 6. In my zone 5/6 garden, she has been 12 feet wide (6 feet in each direction), filling the upper half, 2 feet, on a 4 foot high fence. She has not spread much in the last two years, just hulked-up nicely. I do not expect her to get any larger. In your CA garden you can safely expect your Lady Ashe to exceed mine in size. By how much, I cannot say for sure, but I would estimate at least 25-33% more. The caterpillar damage you showed is disheartening. Caterpillars targeting rose buds is a hard to treat. There two approaches you can try. Spray just the caterpillar vulnerable parts of the bush, just the shoots developing buds, not the entire bush. Try either of these two insecticides: SEVIN - spray every 5 days. Spray the bud growing tips only, during the caterpillar season. Sevin is a nerve poison that must land on the caterpillar's body to kill it. It is not a stomach poison, so Sevin on the plant will not kill the caterpillar as it chomps on the rose buds/leaves. BAYER COMPLETE INSECT CONTROL - Spray every 7 days during caterpillar season. Just spray the bud growing tips. Bayer is both a contact and stomach poison. It is systemic, so kills the caterpillars when they eat sprayed foliage. Its systemc action does translocate to new or expanded growth. That is why weekly spraying during caterpillar season is required. Your aim is to kill the caterpillars when they just hatch and are tiny, before severe damage occurs. When tiny, they do little significant damage, but as they grow (and do so very quickly), the damage done increases exponentially. With Sevin, you hit the tiny, baby caterpillars' bodies as they hatch. With BAYER you not only kill them as they hatch by the spray hitting their bodies, but any that escape will die when they begin to eat the leaves/buds. These leaves/buds have absorbed the systemic insecticide and are lethal to the caterpillars. There are no organic, i.e., insecticidal soap, neem oil, etc., I can recommend. They are very damaging to new rose growth/foliage, especially with your intense heat and sunlight. I did not see saw fly larvae, a.k.a. rose slugs, damage in your photos. These caterpillars primarily make patterned windows and as they mature, patterned holes, in rose leaves. I have not experienced them attacking buds, but I can imagine they could. I hope your Lady Ashe exceeds your expectations as mine has for me. Moses