Marti, I don't know if this would work for you.
I have mine mulched and I used to have a pot ghetto on it but now the grill is there.
You could still mulch and put some yard art on it
jolana

Wildflowers? I'd have to see a picture.PJ

What's a pot ghetto?

It's such an odd spot for anything to look natural. I thought about a rock garden, but then people would walk on it. And a rock garden in the middle of my yard would just look weird.

The only thing that comes to my mind to actually keep from walking on it is a raised deck put together in sections so a piece can be taken off when we have to get to the septic.

I have a fig tree growing over my tank and it does very well there.

How deep are fig tree roots & what will you do if you ever have to dig up the septic?

After working on the lid all morning, dh says it's only a matter of time before our shifting ground cracks the tank as well as the lid. It's already moved a little.

I have 2 septic tanks in the front yard. One has grass over it and right now it's a tan ring thats not greening up like the grass around it. The other one is right in front of my "front" window and I have a raised (about 6-8") flower bed with a crappe myrtle, luna hibiscus, several russian sage, verbena, stella d oro daylillys, hollyhocks, salvia, skullscap, and various annuals that I change out different times of the year.
Sounds like you're going to have to replace that tank....what a mess.
We built this house on a lot that had had another home on it that burned down 12 years ago. We broke up and hauled out the cement slab and footings that went 1/2 way to China. When we went to drain and bust up the old septic tanks they weren't where they were supposed to be and when we found them they were perfectly clean. (One was 1/2 under our garage and had to be filled with concrete$$$$) Almost 30 years ago when the original house was built it seems that when they backfilled,they crushed the pipe going into the septic system and for probably 15 + years that familys sewer was just going into the ground. The lot sat vacant for 10 years before we built on it.

Many years ago, when we had a septic tank, watermelon seeds would get dropped over the drain lines when we would have an outdoor party. They would sprout and grow fine looking watermelons, but I don't think any of us ever tasted any of them.

Marti, it's just an area that is nothing but potted plants and yard art, lol

Sounds interesting jolana. Do visitors to your backyard walk up to the area or view it from a distance?

You're right Bev, one of these days we are going to have to replace the tank. But right now we have too many projects going & 2 kids in college so hope this southern ingenuity will hold for a couple of years. I can't imagine breaking up & removing the foundation yourselves. It's hard enough to replace part of a driveway. My hat is off to you.

Marti, I built compost bins over our tanks before I knew they were there.
It worked great until we needed to have work done and the 'cleaning guys' found the tanks and had to move everything.
Since you KNOW where your tanks are, you can build whatever you like with the knowledge that stuff will be moved.
At least with compost bins, you don't need to walk on it or grow something you might feel strange about eating. (lol)
That or a pot ghetto would be the easiest plans.
If you family does lots of entertaining and you need the space, then a movable deck would be a viable (if expensive) option.

I have also been working on what to do over my septic since it has all those big ugly pipes sticking up. I have been considering installing a little fence around it and planting a heat-tolerant vine around it. That way I'm not denying that it's there, I can put a gate on the fence for access, but no one will accidently drive over it! I don't know how deep vine roots are, or if they are too woody. I haven't gotten that far yet in my research...
Good luck with the tank being ok; ours was just replaced in Jan and what a horrible, expensive ordeal that was!

My parents have the type of system that you have to add chlorine tablets to to purify the water before it's sprayed on the lawn by a sprinkler system. Right now, the tank and pipes just have a layer of bark mulch, since they can't mow there. In the past, Mom has tried Mexican petunia, but it dried out too quickly. She's considering building a garden bed around it with stepping stones so you can get to the pipes, but probably won't put anything too bushy or too precious there.

rumbum, how expensive was it? Right now we are just looking at replacing the top, but dh is afraid a few more years of drought & the tank will crack all the way through & we'll have to replace it too.

Hi ya'll. Marti, my husband installs and services septic systems. The cost to replace your lid will depend on the size of the tank. Don't wait until the lid collapses into the tank though cause you may have to replace the whole thing if the lid damages the tank. $$$

Srburk, that type of system is called an aerobic system and I don't know of any reason you would not be able to mow over any area of a properly installed system of any type. You definitely have to keep the grass mowed away from the sprinkler heads in order for them to function in the intended way.....

Kristi

For a year, while we built this house, we rented a house around the corner and that house had an aerobic septic system that sprinkled the whole back yard. It had the thickest St Augustie grass I ever saw. From that experience I would conclude that st augustine loves that sewer water. If an aerobic system is maintained properly there is no odor or almost no order. A system that goes bad will stink up the whole neighborhood. I water my grass with lake water and sometimes it smells awful.

rumbum....you can make a flower bed around/above your tanks, just place stepping stones to the cannister thing (where the clorine tablets go). Everything will grow real well there. You might want to build it up a few inches, just for visual interest.

Its your drainfield you don't want to plant anything with deep roots (trees)in.

Marti.....we had a man come in with a bulldozer and break it all up. Like I said, those footings were waaaaaay deep. Even the dozer had a tuff time getting them the out.
Our sea wall was bad and we had to have an excavator on a huge barge come in and tear that out and also a 110' X 14' cement walkway along the waters edge. Then we had to put in a new sea wall and built a new stronger 110' x 8' walkway. The big dump trucks hauled out 28 loads of rocks & busted up cement. That projet ate up a BIG unplanned chunk of my construction budget.

remuda, half the lid fell in when dh was trying to lift the other half off. No damage to the tank from it. He drained the tank & got in to examine it.

Pressure from ground movement has made the tank more oval than round. For now, dh put metal on top of the tank, with the top of the tank sitting on the metal & edges covered with plastic to keep the dirt from falling in. He is going to have to make an oversized lid to fit the current size of the tank. He is afraid that a few more summers of drought & shifting earth & the tank will have a break instead of just reshaping.

I have a beautiful flowerbed over our septic system. It is outlined with windsor bricks, so that no one will drive over it. It has about 4 inches of soil, and over the years, the mulch has turned into about another 2 inches of soil. Most sun loving plants thrive there, but I have a sprinkler system. Barbra,

Marti, this is not a concrete tank? I'm trying to visualize concrete bending into an oval?? Also, be real careful with what ya'll are doing. The Health Department tends to get pretty excited about homeowners doing their own repairs because they have to meet code. It may be worth getting a professional out there to take a look. Fines can be pretty steep. Our County Health Department will recommend licensed service providers and installers. I don't know if yours will or not, but whoever looks at it, make very sure they are licensed. I'm not trying to scare you, but you DON'T want problems with the Health Department.

I hope this helps a little bit....

Kristi

I don't know if my county even has a health dept. We had the crushed pipes fixed and lateral lines added when we bought the house & the septic guy had to get a permit. Then 3 years ago we added a bathroom & the same septic guy had a plumber do everything to connect to the tanks and he didn't have to have a permit.

This time, our septic guy just told us what to do, said it was no big deal if it was just the top. Now replacing the tank will be a big deal. This is the first time this tank has ever been touched as far as I know. Surely it wouldn't have been made this way to begin with, but I don't see how concrete can move without cracking. Yes, it's concrete, and when it was completely drained, there were no cracks in the walls or bottom. There were cracks, more like chips about the size of a quarter in the top rim. That may have happened when the roofing truck drove over it 11 years ago. About 10 years ago, a longhorn steer got loose & was walking around in that area too.

We've been walking & riding the lawnmower over this cracked lid for 10 years and it might have been this way all that time. If dh hadn't tried taking it off, it might have stayed this way. But now we're worried about the chips in the rim turning into cracks, and need to dig up the other two tanks to look at them.

We had the tanks cleaned when we bought the house 10 years ago & then again 2 years ago & no one ever said anything, but I think they just dug up the little cork-like lid in the center of the top of the tank (which I keep calling the lid).

Marti,

Sounds like what your husband is doing will work okay for you for now, but I think you're right that ultimately once you have more shifting, the tank will develop cracks and will have to be replaced. I wonder if using soaker hoses in that area would help keep the moisture more even like we do around the foundation of our house? You might ask your septic guy what he thinks about that. Of course, the tanks are a lot deeper than a house foundation, but it was a thought. Oh, by the way, I don't know if you live in the city limits or out in the county, but the permit that you all got originally for the line work would have been obtained either from a city or county health department.

Good luck with it, I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya :)

Kristi

After the heavy equipment is done tearing up your yard, it won't matter how carefully you planted; they kill everything. We are still trying to get grass to grow in again. Check out how big the septic tank is for our 2.5 bath house: