http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u98/kimberly35042/DSCN6041.jpg, http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u98/kimberly35042/DSCN6037.jpg, http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u98/kimberly35042/DSCN6038.jpg

Maybe these will work!

you maybe select some ideas from my pic's designing.
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Here is a link that might be useful: if need more ideas

Here are working links to the OP's photos:
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I think your neighbor is talking about a swale to re-direct the water. Here's some info on swales:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_%28geographic_feature%29
http://www.minneola.us/npdes/swale.pdf

The swales I'm most familiar with are quite shallow and only a few feet wide, built to slow and re-direct run-off to prevent erosion of non-turf areas (in one case, a sloping woodland; in another, a gravel driveway). Swales can also re-direct water for other purposes: your swale would keep the gazebo floor dry; others channel water to rain gardens.

Here are the site's instructions for uploading pics:
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/pepper/2002072150000611.html

I don't post photos, I just know the link. I use a free Firefox add-on (BBCodeXtra) which makes addresses into links, lets me underline, etc. Eternal thanks to justaguy2 from the Tomatoes board for the tip! [This site apparently uses xhtml, or so I assume from what I need to click on.]

Thank you missingtheobvious! The swale info was very helpful. Although in our case, I feel he intends to make the swale semicircled in front of the gazebo and then slant the edge toward the water. Do you think a swale would work if we laid sod? The article mentioned keeping the grass cut so I guess somebody has done it that way before.

Thanks for the fix on the links. I finally got the code right and posted the pictures (actual pics, not links) into someone else's post! What a day...

Check out the person meeting with the garden designer for my pics! http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg0814514010911.html?4

I'm most familiar with two swales:

= My parents' former property sloped perhaps 12' from the street to a small lake (glorified dairy pond) which was the back boundary of their property (and other neighbors' properties). There were two underground drain pipes (probably from downspouts) which emerged into beds a few feet from the swale and fed into it, but most of the water that reached the swale would have been run-off from the yard.

The swale itself was downhill from the small back lawn and flowerbeds, parallel to the lake. It was maybe 3' wide from high point to high point, perhaps 6" deep. It was not planted, but from what I remember, it was covered only by leaves, pine needles, and other tree debris (probably natural mulch from the woods rather than purchased pine needle mulch).

Unlike your proposed swale, which will channel water away from the gazebo, my parents' swale gathered the run-off and allowed it to settle into the water table. That also prevented erosion of the sloping woods at the edge of the lake. I don't remember the swale itself showing any erosion, but I never saw it in a downpour.

My parents dumped leaves in the swale at one side of the property. Wonderful compost!

= I have a swale along the north side of my backyard, though perhaps it's more accurate to call it a low area.

The backyard is about 10-15' below the street; the slope of the land continues eastward to a small creek about 300' away. The north side of the backyard is lower than the south side. Beyond the northern property line is a ditch on the south side of the neighborÂs property -- but in-between the low side of my property and the neighborÂs driveway ditch is a berm.

So run-off flows east (from the front yard) and north (from the higher part of the backyard and the southern neighbor), comes to the berm, and goes east to the pasture and eventually the creek. This prevents the run-off from flowing into and eroding my neighbor's gravel driveway. The neighbor gets a good bit of run-off down the driveway from the street, as well as from his pasture on the other side of the driveway, so he doesn't want more run-off from my property.

= My front lawn also has a swale, I suppose. It's very gentle and dozens of feet wide, so I think of it more as a great job of grading rather than a swale! The first several feet of the front yard slopes pretty steeply down about 24" or so below the road, and then the yard slopes another several inches to the low point of the swale, before rising to the shade trees and the front of the house. The first floor of the house is probably 12-15" above the swale.

This swale ensures that water from the street and the front yard goes around the house rather than to the house's foundation and into the basement.