After a very long wait for agencies to settle funding issues, the Hershey Slope retaining wall was finally installed in late November/early December 1996--just in time to prevent another mud slide! Back on January 11, 1995, a heavy rain caused hundreds of cubic yards of clay to slump from Hershey Slope into the botanical garden. The slide covered roads with several feet of mud, destroying a number of valuable shrubs and trees, and filled the recycling stream with three feet of mud along two-thirds of its length. It took over four months to remove the stream mud, and several months more to reestablish proper water circulation. FEMA agreed to provide partial funding for a retaining wall to stabilize the slope, and once the project was finally begun, it was completed quickly, before heavy rains could cause even more mud damage. It took so long to begin work on the project that seedlings of Eucalyptus had grown into trees twenty feet tall! Now that the slope is repaired, the MEMBG staff hope to develop a special collection there, on what is perhaps the warmest and hence the most tropical site in the garden.