Out here in the west there was a trend of installing dry stream beds about 16-17 years ago. Many were so ugly and terribly installed that I think people finally got turned off to them. Now there is a resurgence due to new landscape ordinances that require a homeowner to keep as much rain water on their own property rather than discharging it into the storm drains. A lot of the newer dry steam beds are much more natural and organic looking and beautifully integrated into the landscape, I think in part because of the horrid examples of the past. I think that you can 'get the look' and have it also be functional as a vehicle to re-charge your aquifer. The installation of a liner, piping, filters and pump is going to be a fairly large undertaking ( $ ) and I wonder if having a dry stream bed might be a better fit than an operational stream bed ? Drtygrl - The flat stone river bed in the first photo is beautifully rendered. I appreciate the moss covered large side wall stones and how they naturally move the undulating fall line of the stream.

Photos must be stored online at a hosting site. I like Photobucket since they store up to 5 gigs for free. It is difficult to post the command line for posting here since the computer recognizes it as a picture but, it is: greater than symbol "" The only spaces are between img and src=. I can move up to 500 pound boulders into place without equipment however, if we have access we can do a much faster job with a bobcat and small excavator. Any damage done by equipment is easily repaired by hand after stone placement is completed. The first photo shows an English style wall without mortar. The stones are simply stacked properly with a solid base and gravity does the rest. I also live in Marietta so it's no big deal to come over to take a look. I do not charge for estimates however, if you require a design (and I have landscape software for this) I do charge for the time to design and implement plant choices. Usually around $250-$500 depending on scale of the project. I use a program that allows me to take an actual photo of the area and install stones, plants and hardscape items as needed. I can also produce overhead designs as well. If you would like to discuss this further please click on my name and follow the link to my email. Gardenweb does not like solicitations on the message boards. Here is a link that might be useful: How to do everything on gardenweb

We have a steeply sloped backyard too. It is south/southwest facing, gets a lot of hot sun during the summer. Most of it is planted in junipers except for an empty patch that is really an eye sore. We had more junipers planted in that spot because we just can't get down there to trim or weed unless we tied ourselves up to a post and propelled down. There is a zigzag pathway down our hill but the owner/builder really should have added an extra 'zag', because it's really steep. My dream would be to tear everything out, put in retaining walls, a seating area at each turn, a fountain or two too, and for my husband...a zip line all the way down! He's crazy. Because at the bottom of the hill a creek runs along our property and it's just breathtaking! In fact, before we even walked in the house we took one look at the back yard, as steeply sloped as it was, and we knew we couldn't pass this property up. Our slope looking up. Our slope looking down. We've cleared the area by the birch tree and along the creek in the first pic, but on the hill there is still planting to do. Not only that, but the old rail ties that were used are rotting. It may not look like it, but there is a lot of work to do yet. These pics were taken in spring before we moved in, so the hillside looks pretty good only because the weeds in the middle of the hillside are green!

Bon, I'm glad you're not going to try to improve too large of an area too quickly. It is exhausting to do so much at once. I find I'm happier when I work on smaller areas within the larger area. With my very first hugelkultur in Texas, we had cut down a dead oak tree and maybe a dead hackberry as well. (It was long, long ago.) Tim cut the limbs into 2' lengths and I stood them up vertically in a row like a rough picket fence, sinking their ends about 4" into the soil. Those limbs roughly outlined the shape of the hugelkultur bed. Then I filled it in with lots more limbs lying horizontally, and I piled compost type material on top of them, including tons of autumn leaves and compost from a big compost pile I had in the back corner of the yard. We added soil on top. I no longer remember where that soil came from, so maybe we bought a load of dirt and had it delivered. Everything grew so well in that area that I then added smaller pieces of rotting and decaying tree limbs and branches to existing shrub beds and flower beds. It was the easiest soil improvement I've ever done. Were it not for the plentiful population of venomous snakes here, I'd do nothing but hugelkultur beds. I'm just afraid that every bed I built with hugelkultur would be a haven for snakes....mostly because, so far, every one I've ever built has, in fact, become a haven for snakes except for the last two that I built using regular lumber and hardware cloth. So, maybe the secret to success in my snakey area is that it has to be an enclosed bed filled with hugelkultur inside of it, but not a pile directly on the ground at or below grade level where the snakes can just slide right in. Snakes are so awful all the time here. If a thunderstorm brings down branches and limbs from the pecan trees (they shed wood all the time---I think if you look at a pecan tree in the wrong way and offend it, it will drop branches just because it is mad), if you rake them up, you need to pick them up right away. If you leave a little pile of raked-up limbs lying on the ground for a day, then when you go to pick it up, there will be a snake coiled up under there somewhere. If you pick up a concrete stepping stone or a big rock, there will be either a snake or scorpion underneath it. If you pick up a board or a piece of sheet metal, you'll find a snake. During snake season, there isn't anything I'll pick up off the ground without using a fence post or garden rake to lift it first, just to make sure there's not a snake lurking underneath it. The last time Tim picked up a concrete stepping stone off the ground (last spring) without using some sort of pole to lift it first, he found a coiled-up copperhead ready to strike. If we didn't have all these snakes here, life and gardening would be a lot easier.....except we'd be totally overrun by rodents. I could hugelkultur to my heart's content. Every year a friend of ours who is trying to make extra money for Christmas gifts asks Tim if he can come into our woodland and collect deadfall or cut down dead standing trees to sell as firewood. Every year the answer is no. (Don't get me started on how much more of a "No" and an explanation this guy would get if he were asking me if he could do this!) I'd never let a stick of wood leave this place when I know how much it improves the soil as it rots in place. Our woodland has the most wonderful rich, humusy soil imaginable. I am really careful not to take too much wood from any single area of the woodland because I don't want to strip any part of the woods of the raw materials that decompose and enrich it. I may be the only person in our neighborhood who is just completely 100% delighted to hear a tree crash down in the woods. As soon as I hear it hit the ground, I know I've got plans for that tree somewhere down the line. I've dragged tons of tree limbs and brush to fill in eroded gullies over the years. I did that for ages and ages before I ever used any of the wood for our garden. When you fill in eroded areas, you pretty much stop the erosion. Then, as the brush and limbs decompose, the soil becomes worthy of growing something. I just keep piling on brush and wood until the eroded gullies aren't gullies any more. At the point that the gullies are level with the ground on either side of the former gully and native plants are sprouting, then I start dragging everything to the next closest gully. I think it is exciting when I see native grasses and trees sprouting in an area that used to be bare, eroded land that eroded even more every time it rained. I'm glad I have a plentiful supply of trees that eventually drop limbs or die so that we can replenish the soil here, but if we didn't have them, I'd just use cornstalks, prairie grasses and anything else I could get my hands on .