Hi, Thank you for all your posts. It is so helpful and I am grateful you have taken the time from your day. I will try address some of the questions. I will have to do the water drainage test as suggested by SC77. My intuition is that it drains okay. The soil has a heavy clay component but is brown and rich. I do not feel it is hydrophobic as the ground stays wet for a long time. However, I am more than happy to be wrong. The grass is not happy at all and is filled with moss and weeds. For the pictures, it was really pouring at that time and I thought it gave a good illustration of my concerns. Water is flowing across my yard from left to right and exiting into my neighbor's yard at the far right. The downspout you see in the picture would be very difficult to reroute. I have two others at the left side of the picture that you cannot see that would be better candidates. The front of my home has the yard sloping gently towards the road. I could bury a pipe and redirect the two downspouts that are currently contributing to the pool on the far left of the picture towards the road. The is no storm drain per se, just the gutter of the road which lesds towards a drain farther down off my property. In the meantime, I might get a 10' pipe and extend the downspout you do see further from the house. I would hope it might allow that 10' to be drier closer to the house. So, my Spring project is a DIY grading mostly to fill in local impressions & reroute some of the downspouts. I will also test my soil to see the absorption rate and treat with surfactants if needed. Then, when we replace our current patio in a few years, we will readjust with the help of a professional. I would go the professional route faster but we are first time homeowners with quite a laundry list of improvements and limited means. Have I missed anything?

I looked at your photo and I am assuming that the area of concern is behind the dry streambed, since I cannot see the trunk of the willow. There are a couple issues to consider. If you add soil, you run the risk of smothering the roots of the tree. Even a few inches of soil spread on top of the root system of a tree can smother them, preventing air exchange from taking place in the original root zone. The fibrous roots that are currently near, or just below, the surface would be buried and you risk a slow decline or death to the tree. The same concern would be with adding a retaining wall and building up the bed. The other concern with the retaining wall is that to build it properly requires digging a footer for a compacted stone base. Digging that trench, roughly 4-6" deep, will cut off another large part of the root system as it extends from the tree. Without the footer, the wall will most likely shift and settle unevenly in the years ahead. The other concern with raising the area is that there is a wooden fence. If you raise the dirt level along the fence, ,it will cause premature rotting of the fence pickets. If you have a better pic of the area, I might be able to give you some other ideas of what to do. Try taking a pic while standing in the yard, so I can see under the tree.

Any progress on this issue? Do not add any soil to you property until you have a full drainage plan! ÃÂ Getting an engineer involved is advisable, but expensive, I know, I am one. :-) ÃÂ Consider these issues: 1. Drainage should take water away from the house, as quickly as possible, w/o flooding or causing erosion to you or others. Water near the house can cause many problems: ÃÂ movement near the foundation can move soil, which could cause the house to move. More immediately is the dry rot the moisture will cause to the wood of the house. Mold can form ÃÂ Maintaining any vegetation is a problem. Mosquitos will love it.ÃÂ 2. Adding fill material improperly could make matters worse.ÃÂ 3. Water always flows downhill. So, where is the water going. Try to follow it. The best way is to get the elevations of your property surveyed. I love the ability of a contour map to communicate slope of the ground. And water will follow the slope.ÃÂ 4. Decide on the outlets for water from your property. ÃÂ Drain water to the street, if possible. ÃÂ If not, build dry wells, but check percolation rates carefully. ÃÂ Be very careful about draining water on to neighboring property.ÃÂ 5. Find the sources of the water.ÃÂ 6. ÃÂ Create drain paths from (or near) sources to the outlets: There are several options to do this: (a) ditch, which needs a slope of at least 1%, 3 % is recommended; (b) Underground drain, such as a French Drain, which needs no slope, or a mini-storm drain pipe, which only it needs at least 0.1% slope, or combine French Drain and pipe; (c) pressure pipe,collect the water at a central spot and then pump the water. There are a lot of pages about all of these issues on the Web. This can be a big job.ÃÂ Good luck!

Dead branches on the Japanese maples. indicate that they were unhappy sometime in the past. No way, without a complete history, to know why. When arb foliage thins, it's not coming back. Doesn't matter at the bottom, back sides ... where it can't be seen. I've not heard of that artillery fungus before. Plants are phenomenal! I think from a ladder, using the pole saw, you can remove 1/3 of the limb at a time. If you used the pole chain saw, you'd cut through too quickly and instead of folding, it would drop wherever and whenever. You'll need to call a pro if you gauge it be too risky. The two Jap. maples in the recent pictures look like they may not be getting enough light. One looks like it suffered from the transplant operation. In transplant, there is always some risk. One just tries to do the best they can and hope for the best. For a transplant to elsewhere in the yard, first dig the receiving planting hole. At the plant to be moved, use a drain spade (long straight shovel -- I'm sure you have one :-) to cut around the tree/shrub, with it ending up as if you've cut it out of the ground using a cookie cutter. I usually go completely around 3 times, trying to make sure that all roots are cut. You'll want the cut line to be a circle that is enough distance from the trunk(s) that the resulting rootball is large enough to hold enough roots that the plant can live ... but not so large that it is too heavy and unmanageable, as soil is very heavy. You'll also want the shovel to be at an angle so the rootball can be extricated and is not so heavy. After you've used a drain spade to cut the sides of the rootball, you'll want to use a shovel, possibly two located at opposite sides of the circle, to gently pry the rootball from the surrounding soil. There may be roots connected at the bottom center. You'd need pry up with one shovel, while using the drain spade to stab under the rootball, trying to sever the roots. The main objective while performing the aforementioned operation is to NOT break up the rootball that is being removed from the ground. You want it to come out of the ground in one whole chunk, with the plant in it. Have a tarp or old sheet ready next to the hole to set the plant on, being careful not to break the rootball. It could either be carried by two people or set in a wheelbarrow and given a ride to the new location. I wouldn't drag it on the ground unless going slow and careful to a destination that was very close, as moving across bumpy ground will usually shake the rootball apart. When you get it to the new location, adjust the soil level of the planting hole to bring the thickness of the rootball to the right height (same as it was growing before or slightly higher, as there may be a little settlement.) Before backfilling, rotate the rootball for the tree's best appearance. If this is done during the growing season, I would add a handful or two of fertilizer to the planting hole/backfill soil. And trim the tree trying to reduce its foliage (so as to balance with the roots that have been removed. This would be removing any bottom branches that don't need to be there anyway, and as an overall haircut of the top portion.