dad .. who has 50 year old maples on top of old ceramic fitted pipes.. tried the copper stuff for a decade.. it does NOT WORK ... right up there with tree spikes ... etc ... he ended up .. buying his own augering machine.. i dont know what it is called.. and roto's his own drain twice a year ... maintenance is easy ... he did have to pay to have it done the first time..as it was so clogged ... he could not do it himself ... most likely part of the basis of my hatred of maples .... OP doesnt mention the native soil type.. which makes a HUGE!!! difference on where a tree puts its roots ... if its 6 inches of topsoil and then bedrock [which i doubt] ... then 50 feet is probably not far enough ... if OP is on top of a mountain of sand and pebbles... its probably an irrelevant hypothesis ... its going to drain if you limit your drain field with the inclusion of roots... you will pay the piper... if you soil is so porous.. no tree is going to interfere .... in a significant manner ... best answer ... call the guy who installed it.. or any local purveyor of such ... they know the soil.. they know the area.. and they know what trees have caused local problems .... and in how many years .... though we are very nice people.. really now.. what the heck do we know about your local drainage issues .... and that is at the root of the issue.. rather than it being a tree issue [yes.. i intended the pun.. lol] good luck ken

The OP posted while I was preparing this post so she already found the FAQ: ................................................................................................. Like carolma I also thought the cesspool had to be replaced when the property changed hands but the FAQ page I linked to above says: "Does Title 5 require every cesspool to be replaced? No. Only those cesspools that exhibit signs of hydraulic failure, are located extremely close to private or public water supplies, or otherwise fail to protect or pose a threat to public health, safety or the environment will need to be upgraded (310 CMR 15.303). Also, cesspools must be upgraded prior to an increase in design flow (e.g., the addition of a bedroom to a home or seats to a restaurant)." I live in Plymouth and they're very picky, particularly since the soil is generally sandy and we're right on top of the big Plymouth Carver Aquifer. Hopefully your neighborhood has better ground conditions - it's a good sign that other people have the same systems. Claire This post was edited by claire on Thu, Apr 4, 13 at 16:01

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.

Native soil is rocky, acidic, goes pretty deep but there is bedrock in the neighborhood so that depth is inconsistent...it drains incredibly well. My theory is that there are fissures in the crystaline bedrock (I grew up a few miles away and when our oil tank leaked, 500 gallons of oil leaked hundreds of feet down into our well within 4 days...we had oil water coming out of the shower...EPA took care of that thank god!). Septics do very well here, even in the middle of forests. I'm 32 and I just bought the house...so I suppose it's possible that I'll still be here in 30 years. Not interested in dwarf for this particular species or location. I put a rhod. maximum in the area and I'd like the red spruce to add to it's shade over time. On this one I took your advice Ken! I have 10 red spruce bare roots coming to me from the NH nursery.