A few quick thoughts.

Ask your drillers if they can install a flush mount well. A flush mount, as the name implies, has no surface stick up. That is the type of well surface completion that is used at gas stations. Another alternative would be a well vault, but it seems to be overkill for this application and more expensive. A well vault would leave a flat surface with a manhole like cover atop the vault.

If you designed a berm under the maple tree, then a well-vault could be completed as a DIY project. Also the berm may provide a suitable planting bed for perrenials under the maple.

I have had to deal with this design problem many times. My best solution has been to purchase a large, square terra cotta chimney tile. Drop it over the well head, top with a square slate/concrete tile and top this with a large, wide attractive pot in which you can plant annuals, herbs or whatever. Also, just one Shore juniper (Juniperus conferta) trained to cascade from the pot will work. Whatever floats your boat depending on light conditions. Also could decide not use a pot and substitute a statue form if desired. Note: the chimney tile is easily removed for well maintenance when needed.

Perhaps you might want to remove the stone ring around the tree, create a garden encompassing the well tile and plant allowing the tile with top adornment to be a focal point in the garden.

Jane -- what a coincidence! Last winter, we had to replace our well casing and pump. The old well (ca 1959) was in what I assume is a "well vault" (underground, sunk in a cavity). That, it turns out, is now a violation of code, at least around us. In fact, the well head HAS to be a minimum of 18 inches off the ground and any contractor who does work on an older well without one is obliged by code (law?) to replace a flush or sunken head with a raised one. I was sick, since our well is about 12 feet away from the FRONT of our house, sitting right under a huge maple in the front yard. We did request a plain (not blue) cap, so ours is a fairly inconspicuous gray.

Because it was relatively close to the house, we chose to expand an existing foundation bed to loop around it in a freeform sort of curve, and are planning -- when budget permits -- to plant low, shade-loving shrubs throughout the bed, mixing them with hostas but ensuring that the well head itself has shrubs, not hostas, around it. I'm leaning toward a mix of azaleas and leucanthoe (the latter being evergreen), something with a natural, open shape, mixing some of the larger-leaved hostas in with them but relying on the shrub structure right around the well head (the hostas -- which were my interim fix this summer while I tried to figure this out -- conceal the head beautifully all summer, but of course are of no use in the winter...) I've never had good luck with ground-cover junipers or I might try those. I actually think if there were enough branch structure, I wouldn't really notice the head in the winter even with deciduous shrubs. (NOTE: we will NOT be using the wonderful, sprawling euonymous we have elsewhere, which our local deer -- who have been blessedly inactive up to now -- completely defoliated last night! Mother Nature's "hard pruning"!)

Our well contractor suggested the fake rock strategy, or a birdbath over it, but given its location (amazing we still HAVE a well with those maple roots!), both options seemed as if they would look absurd. (Naively, I never know what those lone "boulders" in otherwise boulder-free yards were all about! I always thought they were just oddly prominent rocks! ;) So low shrubs it will be. A neighbor with a very old Colonial with a well equally close to the house and equally IN the front yard has planted a somewhat incongruous-looking trio of boxwoods around it; that has convinced me that I want low shrubs with a naturally open, sprawling sort of look, not a group of stiff little soldier shrubs guarding the well head.

On a positive note, I've gotten quite used to seeing it and it bothers me much less than it did initially ... and there is something comforting in knowing WHERE the well actually is, which we never knew before this adventure. We just knew it was "out front" somewhere and hoped we never had to dig it up ...

I now find myself trying to guess where the wells are when I drive around our town... the old houses often have no visible evidence of wells, though you know they have them somewhere; the new ones uniformly have little blue stumps ;)

So long story short: you might want to consider changing your "rock circle" to a more free form bed, then fill it with a variety of plants/shrubs with relatively shallow roots. I'll be watching this post to see if anyone else has creative solutions! Good luck!!

Marty, it seems that you have become my beacon in the world of "Oh, Lord, now what!?!" in the yard. I followed your pine/spruce debacle and now the well. Youre right, its the code that has to be followed, so a low cover is no longer allowed. Good ideas, all, and I think again, I will be following Marty and constructing a free form low-growing shrub garden around my old maple. I will raise the area a bit with new soil to accommodate new shrubs, but Ive learned not to build soil too high around any tree because years later, you have to take it all apart due to feeder roots shooting out from the bark and making the soil almost solid. I think the rocks may ring the tree even more closely and I may put a slightly graduated raised bed away from the tree with the fieldstones as its backing, not the tree. Now the search begins for a shrub mixture including evergreen azaleas so that there is color after spring. Interspersed with geraniums and other annuals, who knows, maybe itll be better than ever! Winter is the time for planning, so let the research begin. Will post a picture of what it all turned out to be later in the year (assuming I make something that actually grows, lol).

Thanks for the ideas, New England GW folks sure are dependable!

Can you slide a hollow bird bath over the top?
What about using cedar slats to make a base to put a gazing ball on top and slip that over it?
A wooden windmill slid over the top?
A wishing well over it?

Jane -- I agree! We seem to be on a similar train track... (Makes me think we should keep tabs on one another's garden plans, yes???) I don't know if others have comments on growing leucothoe (which I spelled wrong in my previous post, sorry!) in CT -- we've put in a couple of "Girard's Rainbow" to try them out (they seem to be recommended in mass plantings but I didn't want to get a lot before seeing how they will do in my relatively dry shade under the maple and the house eaves). I have to say they are absolutely beautiful so far (and evergreen) so I hope they do well for me. So far the deer have left them alone, too...Might be something to mix in with azaleas and other low shrubs... I think they stay at about 2.5-3 feet (I hope!) but have a lovely, arching growth habit. I'm planning a "drift" of them in front of the house and around the wellhead if they do well (so to speak :) ...

Yes, the deer don't touch leucothoe to EAT them, BUT I have had the deer lie down in the middle of my patch and CRUSH a big section! LOL It's always something!

If it were me, I wouldn't plan on extensive landscaping in that area, and would instead place a birdbath over the pipe, maybe create a bird-feeding station. Why? Because it is notoriously difficult to grow plants underneath a maple due to their thirsty and abundant feeder roots, which as you pointed out, will simply grow into any soil you add and even into the roots of the plants you irrigate.

From your picture, I am guessing the tree is a Sugar maple? If so, they are very sensitive to root disturbance AND suffocation of the roots. The tree has likely already experienced root disturbance from the well work, and more digging or adding of soil may add to the disturbance.

Not sure if this would be seriously bad for the tree, but this is what happened to my Sugar maple when I dug out 2 large burning bushes from one side of it - significant enough root damage that led to a section of the trunk dying off (the tree seems to be okay though, in fact had glorious fall color this past year).

{{gwi:472120}}

Boy, oh boy! NE GW folks never disappoint. I am truly grateful for all the advice. Terrene has a good point and I know she is correct. Am sorry about the bark peel on your beautiful maple, but it sure makes your point and I take it very seriously. Im not young enough to see another maple reach that grand stature.

Sure am glad its January and not May when all this happened even though Im still hauling water because the bleach isnt out of the system yet. The well is 88 deep and as I hovered over the well workers last week, the amount of water is a gift. There is water (level at top of well) 10 down from ground level and I did notice that very few small maple roots were involved. That is my prized sugar maple and it is cabled about 25 up. Knowing that the tree has a good water source is very important to us, so I wont mess it up with larger shrubs encircling the tree. Instead, Im taking to the bird bath idea and its a plus that I ran electricity to the tree well garden years ago for a small summertime fountain. That wiring could be used for a heated birdbath.

Ill probably have to build a base for a bath, daddymem, nandina, because next to the 6" diameter well pipe is a 2" diameter conduit for the pumps electrical wiring. The blue cap is not round. And, yes, because of the maple, maybe some creative genius will happen with container gardening around a birdbath. A work in progress!

Gratefully accepting all ideas,

Jane

Just recently I had to have my well pump replaced and was glad that I actually listened to my husband when he told me not to plant anything too close to the well. By your photo I am guessing your well is close enough to your house that you may not need it but I have a yard hydrant that comes right off the well pump and allows me year round water/hose connection in a remote area.
As much as I like the idea of covering it with a chimney cap covered with a rock slab to act as a plant stand or table next to and adirondack chair, I am troubled with how cluttered that might look next to your rock border. It is hard to tell in the photo but is the border around the tree necessary or purely ornamental? Or then again as others have suggested extending the rock border area around the well cap would work as well. Good luck and I bet as time goes by it will become even less noticeable to you as it is now.