I have a strip of flat land between my back cement wall and my new fish pond wall. This strip is 33 feet long and 8 feet wide. It is planted with Asoka trees for the length of the strip. I seem to accumulate a lot of water there that washes dirt into the pond because I need to landscape some plus other things. I would like to know if I would accumulate more or less water in an area like this if I took out the trees. Anyone have any knowledge about things like this? I plan to slope the strip towards one end to drain away the water. But I would like to know if the trees help or not. Thanks.