I suspect you will still need your drain in approximately the same location, but if you lay the drain and then wish to lay concrete there, you will be hooped. The issue is that the same amount of water will come from the woods as now, but it may flow differently after your walls are done, and it may somehow evade your drains or, Marcinde's point being well taken, cause problems with your septic. I would not count on plant absorption of water to accomplish much - partly because it isn't constant, and even if it were it certainly can't surge with water flow. And if your walls do not shift water flow but rather do hold it back, my concern would be that your whole wall and plant assembly would come tumbling down the hill and land on your patio with the weight of retained water. It is absolutely not impossible for lay people to learn what they need to know to manage a project like this, but the risk arises if you do not take the time to adequately learn it and do something wrong. The risks are anything from doing a lot of work and STILL getting water in the basement, or getting an overwhelmed septic field, or the aforementioned landslide scenario. Coupled with your slope toward the fence on the other side, you definitely have some grading issues to deal with - I think I would recommend you level the area near the fence with a retaining wall to create a walkable, mowable, plantable area there - and I suspect you would indeed, as Marcinde suggests, be well advised to consult with a landscape or engineering professional who can advise you on the whole scope of the situation and make a grading plan for the whole lot. Then you could either rent or hire the earthmoving machinery to create your new contours, and build your walls from there. Mind you, with basement water, sometimes the fix is amazingly small, and if it's just to solve that you may not need to terrace at all. We have, for instance, for years had an annual wet-basement-vacuuming event, but were never quite clear on how the water was getting in though we thought it had something to do with the porch foundation. One summer I was mortaring some bricks outside, and I had a little mortar left over, so on a whim I formed a small ledge to direct water away from the door leading into the porch foundation. About a half cup of mortar, the ledge less than an inch high and a foot long - and voila, no more water in basement. The moral is, analyze your problem first, and THEN design your solution, not the other way around. And don't be embarrassed to hire help for the analyzing, though sometimes, all you need to do is go outside when it's raining hard and be observant. KarinL

A 100% slope is actually 1:1 or a 45deg slope, but I have donned my rappelling gear and planted on vertical faces. Yes, the mulch will have to be replenished from time to time. I wish I could tell you how often but there are some variables. I also can't tell you costs because I don't know about either your plant or labor market. You can also get mulch for cheap or free from tree trimmers and some municipalities offer free composted mulch from green bins. You will also have to weed regardless, but the mulch makes it easier. Aggressive groundcover can itself become a weed, especially if it self sows. Plus, weeds are by their nature aggressive and can compete with a lot of aggressive groundcovers, at least for a little while. When I say shrubs, they can be groundcovers as well. They are just low growing shrubs. You can also mulch heavily (8-12") and sow perennial shrub seed. That is a proven restoration technique, although weeds will still come up. Since you are new to gardening, I will recommend this site, The Informed Gardener, especialy the bits about mulch.

I confess I do not know much about athracnose. In wet areas red osier or silky dogwood works well. Those dogwoods re-root again when their branches hit the ground. You can do a search for 'bioengineering' products. I recently purchased 50 willow stakes for about $54.00 including the costs of the shipping. If even half of them survive I will consider it a great investment. I bought my stakes from www.ernstseed.com but there are other companies that sell these things as well. My recollection is that NC has its own native plant society. They might have some good suggestions for you. Here is a link that might be useful: Ernst Conservation Seeds.

Here are some previous posts about this topic from this forum: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tngard/msg1216105216510.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tngard/msg0821153611813.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a link for the search results in the Landscape Design Forum: http://search.gardenweb.com/search/nph-ind.cgi?term=steep+bank&forum=design&forum_name=Landscape+Design http://search.gardenweb.com/search/nph-ind.cgi?term=steep+slope&forum=design&forum_name=Landscape+Design -------------------------------------------------------------------- You can also search this entire site for steep bank, steep slope, etc. There are over 1000 posts about this subject, so it may take a while to skim through them all. I doubt there is anything we could add that's not already been covered in one of these posts, but if you think of more specific questions, I'll keep an eye out.