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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
I am not convinced that the Zoysia would over come the weeks. It certainly has not been the case in my lawn. In fact the centipee has grown in to the area I planted.
Salal grows up to about 1.5 feet high and should not put roots into the septic field. It is dark green and is used as greenery in flower arrangements. It has edible berries and small flowers like blueberries. There are a bunch of other ground covers that grow in that area.
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
Thanks for the Salal link. The link says that it will grow up to a max of 10 feet high (!), typically 5-6 feet. That's a little tall for us, although in our septic field it would be exposed to full sun so it would be shorter. It sure is pretty.
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
One thing we'd like to do with the septic is to plant something that will attract the deer. When we first moved here we had them around all the time, but ever since the folks down the road built their house the deer have disappeared. I'm not sure there's a connection there but timewise that's what happened.
Anyway, we miss seeing the deer out there. There's nothing like sitting on the deck with a rifle waiting for dinner to peak out of the woods (just kidding, well, sorta).
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
I have never seen Salal in the wild over about 2 feet and I picked it for a while as did my brother.
Low bush blue berries would attact all types of wild life and would look similar but not in the winter. You might not want the bear either.
They call it deer fern but I am not certain that deer eat it.
I emailed you on the other info on OR macroman = peters
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
A number of people in B.C. gave up on grass and let the moss take over. They liked it as they never needed to mow and all they need to do was remove the odd weed.
Below is a post for BC government listing of native plants for the garden. Why buy when its on the web.
Peters
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
Thanks again for the link. The thing about moss here is that it seems to only grow where you don't want it. We have it on our roof, walks, and driveway but it never seems to grow in the septic field where it would be useful 
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
I wonder if it's possible that the septic installer put back little or any to-soil on the leaching field? If nothing but weeds grow then maybe poor soil is the reason. Soil improvement may help grow something you want there. Another possible explanation is that the system isn't working that well and the field is too wet for most grass.
We have very sandy soil around here and the perc rates are high. You can't distinguish leaching fields from the rest of the lawn except during dry weather where there's enough additional moisture to keep it green. Most people around here treat leech fields no different than the rest of the lawn, but you don't drive anything real heavy across them.
I don't know if leech fields are covered with non-treated building paper before back-filling to keep soil out of the stone until it firms up (the paper eventually deteriorates) but there shouldn't be much worry about soil compacting below 2' from a CUT. The stone itself doesn't compact. If the field is wet, installing a gray water pit will help out the septic system.
Leaching fields aren't the only places where heavy vehicles shouldn't go. Our fire crew is doing a water survey. One person with waterfront property was very agreeable to allow our tanker access to the river. He thought it looked like the truck could squeeze passed his well OK (it's a dug well). Fortunately the guy who did the survey has heavy equipment experience and said: 'Oh no, you don't want a loaded single axle heavy truck anywhere near a dug well casing.' On his own, the property owner advised us that the tree that was blocking access isn't there any more. He was even more than very agreeable.
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
I don't think there's a problem with the septic system. It's only a few years old, way oversized for our house, and the soil is as dry there as anywhere else. The health inspectors in our area are very, very strict regarding perc rates and inspections.
The lack of topsoil is a possibility. When they installed it they dug only the trenches for the leach lines so part of my brain thinks that there would be a growth pattern visible in the existing vegetation to indicate where the drain lines are but we can't see one. I think the lack of good stuff growing there is simply because it was let go to grow wild until I got the tractor a couple of months ago. Regular bush hogging might fix that problem.
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
I want to add a word of caution here, septic system leach fields are a little more delicate than most people think.
The old wisdom was 'just keep really heavy things off them', unfortunately this was based on the misconception that the water coming out of the leach field was supposed to DOWN into the ground and if you drove something heavy over it the damage would be from crushed pipe (in the days of Terra Cotta clay pipes) and nothing else. In fact in a lot of cases the water does go down, unfortunately it is supposed to go UP to the surface where natural evapouration and plants, grass and ground cover type plants only, hopefully, will absorb the moisture and give it off into the atmosphere. This is why the trenches are so close to the surface.
Tom's comment about compaction below 2' (no offence to you Tom) is exactly the kind of situation you want to avoid. A typical leach pipe should never be deeper than 3' to the BOTTOM of the trench, the top of the entire setup (pipe, sand & gravel) is only a MAXIMUM of 2' down. If you compact ALL of the soil above the pipe you dramatically slow down the process of evapouration & therefore reduce the effectiveness of the whole system.
In fact one of the best, yet seldom done, things you can do is to RELIEVE the compaction over the tile field. A slit-type (or spring-blade type) aerator is the ideal for this type of operation.
When it water goes down it becomes contamination in the ground-water table, not a good thing at all.
One of the best things you can do for a septic system is to keep it covered with a healthy cover of grass and keep it well cut. This will take the most water out of the soil possible.
Best of luck.
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Clover over septic field. Good? Bad? Ugly?
If it were me I'd plant aspen or cotton woods over the top. They'll get a lot of fertilizer and grow like CRAZZZY !
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06-28-2017, 01:54 
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