Life is a gamble and every action we take has some risk involved. Going to the store to buy your vegetables incurs the risk of being in an accident. Growing your own vegetables on a drainfield creates a possibility of bacterial or viral contamination and/or damage to the septic system. Here are some websites that say it's not a good idea to plant edible crops on drainfields. You will also find people who have done it with no adverse effects. The decision is yours. Weigh the odds and do what you think is right. As for me, I'd rather not eat anything grown on my septic drainfield and even though we are in the business, I wouldn't want to run the risk of causing a failure of the system for the sake of my vegetable garden. JMHO. http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ho/2007/fs0732.pdf http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/qa/water0007.htm http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Resources/PDFs/CIS1027.pdf http://www.nsfc.wvu.edu/smart/training/toolkit/page2/onsite/Guide_SepticSystemOwner.pdf http://www.phd1.idaho.gov/home/publicinfo/documents/CareandMaintenanceofSeptic.pdf http://www.wichita.gov/CityOffices/Environmental/WaterQuality/Septic_Systems.htm

Our county strongly advises that nothing but grass be planted above the septic system and drain field. That being said I have noticed that the grass is greener in that area at 2 of my neighbors homes. There does not appear to be a difference at mine. I suspect that the roses would thrive. I wonder if their roots would disturb the drain system? Not sure. Jeannie

From reading all of this it is now obvious to me that most people have very little if any knowledge of how a septic system really works. The vegetation covering a leach field is vital to the proper performance of the system. A septic tank is a large water tight rectangular or cylindrical tank made out of concrete, metal, fiberglass or plastic. The sewer line enters the tank on one end near the top of the tank. The discharge line to the leach field exits the opposite end of the tank 6" below the level of the sewer line. Inside the tank there is a baffle that divides the tank into two chambers, the sediment chamber and the digester, although in truth the digestion takes place throughout the entire tank. As the effluent enters the first chamber it is a mixture of water, fecal matter, soap, household chemicals, organic kitchen waste, human hair & skin cells, metals, plastics, paper, kids toys and no doubt a couple dozen golf balls as some idiot demonstrates his new toilet to the neighbors. As that mess enters the first chamber the heavier materials drop to the bottom of the chamber while the lighter floatable solids remain near the surface where they are slowly broken down into a thick slurry. The slurry then passes through the baffle and into the digestion chamber. Inside the septic tank there is a colony of "Anaerobic bacteria" (bacterial which thrive in the absence of air) that literally eat the waste and in the process the waste is converted to a gray water liquid. The gray water then flows into the leach field pipe system. In the leach field pipe system there is another colony of bacteria, only this time it is "Aerobic bacteria" (bacteria which thrives in air). The aerobic bacteria then eat the remaining waste in the gray water and they give off water and produce various nitrates. The final phase of the waste treatment process is done by the vegetation covering the leach field. The plants(generally sod) roots take in the water and nitrates. During daylight hours the plants take in some carbon dioxide through their roots from the leach field but generally they get the most of their carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Through the process of "Photosynthesis" the plants use sunlight energy to convert the water and nitrates to the nutrients the plants need for growth. In exchange the the plants give off pure oxygen and water vapor into the atmosphere. Sod is the preferred covering over a leech field because a healthy stand of sod promotes earthworms which aerate the soil allowing air to get into the leach field pipe to support the aerobic bacteria colony. If you were to cover the leech field with P-gravel or mulch there would be no vegetation roots to absorb the water, nor would there be sufficient oxygen getting into the leach field to support the aerobic bacteria. The end result would be a saturation of the soil surrounding the leach field and the raw gray water would percolate to the surface creating a health hazard. I have lived in regions where they don't even allow you to sit a picnic table over the leach field, although I never heard of anyone getting busted for it.

I don't see your zone, but I would use a mix of deciduous and evergreen shrubs, including some conifers. I would think that deciduous would be ok even where you want to hide the trailer, etc. since you probably don't hang out in the yard a lot in winter, though if you do all hollies there, repeat a group of hollies at least once somewhere else. Most shrubs grow at least as fast as the hollies you're presently interested in, though they'd be much wider, a plus as far as I'm concerned in that there would be less lawn to mow :). With a mix, you'd also get flowering and berries, and in some cases fall color. You might look at the huge range of Viburnums--V. sargentii 'Susquehanna' is about 15x15 and deciduous. V. pragense and V. rhytidophyllum (several cultivars available) are evergreen down to minus 10 at least. Groupings of V. dilatatum (many cultivars available) are also good. (To get good fruit set from the viburnums, you must plant at least two different cultivars of each species.) There are lots of others as well. Other shrubs include Magnolia stellata cultivars--very early, fragrant bloom and dense leaf cover-- and many gorgeous conifers with a range of colors from green to blue to yellow. Another tall, narrow conifer is Juniperus virginianus 'Taylor'--but it's hard to find and expensive. Since you have so much room, don't skimp on the width of this border. If you plant a narrow plant near a wide one, you can "thicken" the border in width smaller shrubs to face down the narrow one. If you spend the time to do this right, you'll have privacy, year round interest, low maintenance, and the value of your property would be increased. For conifers, the conifer forum suggest coniferkingdom.com or westernevergreen.com. Klehm's Song Sparrow Farm offers some each year too. One warning--don't make the border polka dot, though of course you can repeat certain shrubs. Hope this helps.