I rebuilt the waterway area that leads to the small tomato/pepper garden on the East side of Bill's shop into more of an ornamental plant garden. So far it looks great, but I flooded Bill's shop, and it looks like I have finally used up my personal rock collection. I could stop the flooding if I had just a few more real nice rocks, and I know a couple of people in town who have nice rock collections, but we've gone through the "could I borrow a few of your rocks" thing before, and I wouldn't ever loan them any. I doubt that they will be any different toward me.
Bill hasn't said anything, but I'm sure he is annoyed. He doesn't use that shop very often any more, but he does have his remote controlled planes stored in there and it's kind of swampy now. The good news is that he is old, and in a few days the things connected to oldness will kick in and he will forget what I did. It still looks better, up close and from my back yard, which was my objective.
The plants are random choices, whatever was free, on sale, or needed to be replanted. They fill out slightly more every day, and look pretty incredible for a desert environment but would probably be completely different somewhere wetter. We are finding that although the top and inner edges of the pond stay lush (for here), everything below the outer edges of the berm fades quickly in the heat and dryness. Another thing we have learned is that catnip, although the hummingbirds do like it as the brochure said, is a flower-bed eating plant, and kind of hard to get rid of once it establishes. I moved a large plant from beside the waterfall to the fringe of the pond system where less moisture should tone it down.