I finally was able to contact the city and they have set up an inspection. They should be able to tell me what can and cannot be done. I've kind of combined all the ideas I've recieved into one and I think this will work: 1 - armour stone retaining wall around yard. 2 - 6" culvurt pipe for stormwater drainage from surrounding swale 3 - weeping tile behind wall to enable drainage from neighbors yards 4 - weeping tile in front of wall to enable drainage from our yard 5 - crushed gravel fill with cloth on top 6 - soil and sod on top of cloth Quotes for this have ranged between 5 to 8 thousand dollars.

well, we are almost to the max posts, so i wanted to update on my mature syngonium progress. i have 2 new leaves of 'mature form' AND also some variegation near veins - that's totally unexpected! so i have 5 leaves and 2 little 'horns' at the ends, just like other mature leaves. when i took the cutting, the last very young leaf got mangled in xfer , so i cut it off, but left the stalk (where the new leaf develops) - so the 1st leaf was def formed BEFORE i took the cutting. now the 2nd? i am not sure - may be it was already formed inside there too? so i'll have to wait for a few more to be sure. but so far i am happy - i fed it well, so new leaves are dark green, the older leaves are slowly decaying one by one. but that's normal. now the big question is - when do i trim the vine? i think i'll grow may be 10 leaves , so i can trim it and root again and then see what will come out. and then of course i am afraid that after the trim the young immature leaves start popping. but that will be end of summer, not sooner. so, the leaves on the left are new. they have a little hard time unfurling, so they some spots and tears. they are folded in a very interesting 'origami' fashion. next time i'll take pics as they unfold to show you.

good morning sweetannie, yes, it does sound like paradise to me too - and I would be honored if I were your neighbor to come over and work for free and learn all I could Sigh, that is not to be. You know what is said about Paradise; "they took paradise and put up a parking lot." Of course your neighbors have a right to manage their property, but there may be regulations in your area on impact to surrounding land, check into that. I bought my little semi-rural plot in a teeny-tiny town a year and a half ago. It is sloped, and right at the highest edge are 4 evergreens. They are planted too close to each other... but they were mine, I wouldn't dream of cutting down 4 mature trees unless there were a pressing and logical reason. Well, two had quite a few brown tips and within a year ALL FOUR were dead as the proverbial doornail. I had an expert in to look at them, no - not borers - somebody has poisoned them. He said "someone has poisoned them, likely with copper." I look to the houses on higher ground and try to figure who may have wanted them gone, and who should PAY FOR THEIR REMOVAL, and there are no answers. I've tried posting them as free wood on CraigsList, posted on local bulletin boards, called tree services, etc. I haven't even 1/100th of the land you have, but as I said - it's MINE and I love it desperately already. I have my tiny meadow out back which slopes from my four huge dead brown trees gently down to the house. I've seeded with Crimson Clover, cone flower, and fifteen other wildflowers and I'd seeing tiny results. The neighbors, of course, seem to hate it. They were used to parking two cars on the top edge of it. Pfui. The only one who actually said anything is the house directly across the alley from me. Four dead trees stand between he and I. Ever since he (lightly) complained I have looked at him and wondered, how much did four tall trees and a neglected patch of meadow annoy him? Hmmm? GH-

Hi bunkers, I guess I'm not the only one who's been hovering around the edges of this one! I agree with stevation about the photos! I don't have a clear picture of what you're trying to do. Are you looking for something to plant along the edges of the swale---or in it over/around the cobbles----or none of the above! I lived in the hilly area just north of Parker for 20 years and there was a flood plain that ran across the lower part of the neighbor's property just below me. One year we DID get a 100-year flood in the Parker area, and it was amazing! The gully filled up to the top and over the banks and in a wide swath across the road. When the rain stopped, the kids had a ball---briefly! All the houses were above the water line, so no one had structural damage. And in a couple hours it was all gone! And, even though we had some really hard rainfalls at other times, that's the ONLY time I ever remember seeing water in the gully! There was probably some at times, but not enough to make much difference. Unless this is an area where you have reason to expect wet conditions outside of flooding rain conditions, I think you need to plan for more typically Colorado xeric stuff! Even most of the xeric stuff will love an occasional good drenching! And unless we get a VERY unusual year--like 1965, when it rained daily for a week and THEN we got a "catastrophic" downpour, when we had the flood that washed out all the bridges into downtown except one and large sections of I25 going down to the Springs--you're not going to need to worry about too much moisture! I don't remember for sure, but I think that was a 500-year flood! (Still have the newspaper pictures of it---and my own!) But even after THAT, except in the very localized Platte basin, everything else dried out again in short order! If you can, post pictures, or try to give us a better idea of where/what you want to plant, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: 1965 Denver flood!