How to disguise a 5 ft concrete sewer access portal

How can I disguise a 5 ft concrete sewer access portal. This is all sticking out above ground, 5ft concrete circle holding the manhole access port. First I tried ornamental grass. It never rooted as my ground is very hard clay. Then I tried vines and threw a casting net over this beast for them to climb on. Yeah, that works to well. The weeds loved playing hide and seek behind the net. So I ripped all that out the other day. I'll just plant the vines in the backyard somewhere. Now I have to look at this ugly concrete thing again. One problem is the hard clay and the other problem is my ditch rarely drains, so that spot is often one of the wettest. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Carol

This message was edited Dec 19, 2007 1:42 PM

bald cypress seedlings?

Thank you for trying. My neighbors would revolt if I planted any more trees. Especially ones that grow to 50' - 70', with a 25' or more spread. I have already planted 18 trees on my 1/2 acre lot. Plus this sewer access is really close to the road, with only my ditch to keep it seperate.

Carol

Do you have a picture? I'm having a tough time with a visual image.

just put a potted plant with mulch around it. then if they need to get in there they just move the plant over and sweep the mulch. lol!

Cute Len. Haven't thought of that one. The pots would have to be huge just for the roots. Let me take a picture, so y'all can see what I'm dealing with.

Carol

i would use several smaller potted plants and then just mulch heavily with pine bark.
maybe potted mini roses

Hmm. Love roses. That might work. But with them being in pots, would they would require more maintenance? I have days where walking is out of the question and I hate to see a plant suffer. I may have to reasearch this.

I have posted a picture for y'all, so that you can see what I am dealing with.

Carol

WOW, I see what you mean. How about building a lattice work box around the outside....hinge oneside so if they have to do maintenance they can get to that critter without problems. Plant climbing roses on 3 sides and encourage them to grow!

or how about pompous grass?

I definitely feel your pain, that is ugly! And big! I like doccat's suggestion of a lattice, that would be my first thought too. Or if you're having trouble getting things to grow there, I wonder if you could try to turn it from an eyesore into garden art. Paint some pretty flowers on it and then put a container of trailing plants on top of it, or paint it to look like stone and plop a birdbath on top of it, something to make it look like you put it there on purpose.

That's a good idea ecrane. Try the trash to treasure group for some suggestions on that Ladysaltfire. That is a very creative artistic bunch of people!

dang does the water get that high?! wow

Lol. No the water doesn't get that high. It was just what they decided to install for our sewer access, instead of one closer to the ground. I too thought of painting it, but that would be considered defacing city property, since they maintain the sewer system. I think either I need to find someone to help me build that hinged lattice or plop a trailing plant on top. I think the trailing plant just might do it, budget wise. Thank you for all of your assistance.

Carol

Hi Dorothy here. Could you circle it or square it (per your preference) with rock and then back fill it so that the rock front creates a raised bed? The plants you choose will then not have to deal with the wet conditions or the hard clay. That would open up your choice to a perennial bed or provide a place for you to do something each season with annuals. I can see mums filling in the raised bed with a pumpkin or scarecrow perched on the top of the structure. Summers you could do a birdbath on the top with summer flowers in the bed, etc. Question: Do you think if you asked permission, the city will let you perhaps do something really plain like a mosaic of pebbles on the outside? in the center your house numbers? Something like that?

Dorothy,

That thought crossed my mind. But with money so, so tight, a raised bed would take some time until I could gather bricks or stone leftover from someones construction project. Could either the stone or bricks be drystacked? That way it's easily moved, if necessary. And with my own bricks or stone, I would be able to put my house #'s. Thank you for all of your suggestions. I will certainly keep them in mind. Have a happy and safe holiday.

Carol

i think i would take a picture and send or take it to my councilman. they may take it out and put one in ground level. if the water doesn't get that high then why would there need be something that ugly in your front yard.

Carol, I drystacked the raised bed I made around a bottle tree. But, the rocks came from the woods (so no cost) and were fairly big so really some rocks (boulders) created a 12 or 14 inch "wall" section all by itself. I only had to -at most- stack two levels. So no falling over and dry stacking worked well --more like dry 'piling'!! Then I just filled the area with dirt and compost and planted. Even tho your sewer 'art' is tall now --once you get some rocks around it ..it will rapidly appear shorter. What is left should cover well with plants that are planted at the higher level of the raised bed. Be on the lookout for pressure treated wood - can use that in place of the rocks.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will surely keep them in mind. So many of my neighbors do nothing to hide theirs, but it's something I rather disguise. I know where there are some construction sites that have pressure treated wood in their trash piles.

Carol

Carol
Do a knock up job and then 'rent' yourself out to your neighbors!!

If only I could. I will have to have help doing mine. I have RSD and can't lift much or bend or kneel. But I sure can keep track of how it was done. ;) Maybe sell my plan to them.

Carol

Sometimes when you try to hard to hide something, you end up drawing more attention to it.

How true that is Julie. Ex: The vines that I just removed, smothered by weeds.

Put in 4 good sturdy poles, add a wooden roof and hang a bucket from under the roof and call it a wishing well, (like wish the sewer was not in my garden he he he) add just a few planters around the outside for geraniums etc to disguise the concrete or paint it to look like bricks, add a few bird feeders and hey presto, a garden feature the envy of the street, feeding the birds and easy to remove if need be, change the planters as you fancy different colours for the seasons. good luck, WeeNel.

Thank you. What an inventive sugestion. i am considering all my options and then that beast better watch out.

Carol

WeeNell
Super idea! I will have to upload a photo of the pipe I have coming out of my gravel bog ..rising up into the air and disappearing into the side wall... in all its white PVC glory ..and ask you to make something of it! ~dorothy

Dorothy,

PVC pipe, huh? That's sounds like something my stepfather would do. He recently made a bird feeder for him and my mom to watch all the birds as the eat. At least, PVC pipe is affordable.

Carol

There you go again, WeeNel, being clever..........LOL

Carol..
If only you knew.....I can't even see the bog or landscaping anymore --all I see is THAT pipe! I will take a photo of the bog and pipe and ask for some suggestions. (I should have tied a red bow on it for Christmas --make lemonade from lemons as they say) We had to enlarge our small gravel bog to get a bigger reservoir of water to support the stream (a pondless stream). The evaporation was too great with the smaller reservoir and the bog kept drying out. The original bog had all the pipes that came from the vault carrying the circulated the water hidden --vault situated close to the side wall. But since we had to enlarge all around the vault, thus moving the sidewall back several feet, it created about 4 feet of gravel bog that the pipe had to span before it reached a side wall. So this ugly white pipe comes out of the vault....spans part of the gravel bog and then disappears into the sidewall where then it begins its underground route to the top of the fountainhead where the waterfall enters the top of the stream and begins its return trip. It is not only white PVC but it has blue markings on it and glue and an elbow.. etc.etc. The landscaper (who designed it ...sans an adequate reservoir) suggested that we plant these pond reeds or something to disguise..... that isn't going to work during dry spells...it dries out there still. I don't want to dig it all up again.. Come warmer weather, I am thinking about creating a hypertufa cover that looks like rock to sit over it like a 'radiator cover'..maybe flatten the top to hold a birdbath or just build one into it. BUT maybe WeeNel can help with some ideas !

The hypertufa cover sounds like a pretty good idea to me! You could do a lot with that.

yeah, that is what I thought....maybe make it big enough to conceal the landscaper....(snort)

Put a solid square treated wooden box around it BUT only make the box about 3 feet tall (if the sewer is 5 feet). Fill the box with some good dirt (dirt that will not dry out too fast), plant your favorite plants that will grow tall enough to hide the top 2 feet. Also, you might consider painting the top part of the concrete sewer (dark olive). You will have to use treated wood or the wood will rot. Maybe stand a statue of a naked David on top. lol
Good luck.

OK Missingrosie, A bog garden can be so much fun AND you get to grow plants that others cant even consider, good so far, but you need to empty your dipped BOG area, then add a good heavy polythene as a liner to hold onto more water on hot dry spells, to the bottom, then get the garden fork and puncture a few holes in the polythene so that the area drains water and dont overflow to areas you dont want water. Add about four/six inches of charcoal on the bottom inside the liner, as this keeps the soil more sweat and prevents the smell you mentioned, then add any crap soil with some manure or compost added, then choose your plants, things that you will see at the very shallow side of pools where they like the moist soil, but not rooted into deep water, look for things to plant that will give you structure as well as foliage contrasts, greenery can be just as attractive as flower colours and lasts longer, so look for the back of your bog garden where you would grow the tallest plants and work your way forwards and out to the edges to give you balance. tall plants could be.
Ligularia Flowers Yellow and nice shaped foliage
Rogersia Pinnata Superba is nice pink flowers
Astilbe, come in red, white, pink, cream,
Hostas, all green or nice verigated, they have purple flowers but are grown for the foliage
Candalabra Primula comes in yellow, pinks of all colours, reds and look wonderful.
Arums have wonderful snake skin like foliage and berries early spring before the leaves
Pelygonums can creep along the soil edges for ground cover
Iris siberica, come in white, yellow purple and are good planted with other plants that are green as the Iris adds a colour.
Iris japanese flags types are good also,
Primula Vialii, japonica, and floridea has a wonderful perfume
Meconopsis, Himalayan poppy blue are fab
Trolis, Globe flowers are yellow
Mimulus, monkey flower, yellow red, pink etc, low growing for edges or between rocks
Dierama, Tall very slender stems with pink flowers, we say angels fishing rods, my fav.

Grasses/ferns are Carex, varigated yellows, all greens, reds etc all heights and spreads
Stripa is very fluffy grass for edges and has pink white etc flower heads are good for winter as when iced, they look wonderful shaped fluffy balls
sedges are pink, green etc.
there are loads of plants to look out for to plant up a bog garden, but the main thing is to plant them in threes, five or seven rather than just a dot of colour here and there, the effect is best when planted in mass. Another important part is to check out the spread and height of your plants as in these conditions, they will grow really fast and mature quickly.
Good luck. hope this is enough to be going on with. Weenel.

WeeNel
I will upload a photo. It rained so a bit more of the pipe is covered than typically - so I would like to get the photo when it will show what is more typical. I don't have a problem with an odor or anything so not sure what you referred to in your post. I think the landscaper did take care of the majority problem with the bog drying out. This is a gravel bog. It is probably 5 or more feet deep. The bog WAS filled with rock from bottom to the top, But now - as you have mentioned in your post we needed more water so the landscaper enlarged the entire thing and put some kind of scaffold in the bottom (which allowed him to empty the rock from the bottom and have more free space for water....more volume more reservoir. On top of the scaffolding is the thick plastic sheeting and then the large river rock cover the sheeting and fill up the bog the rest of the way. So: it is the skeleton of the scaffold existing in several feet of water that comprises the main reservoir) then comes the plastic liner and last the river rock on top of that. So, it can't be filled with dirt or charcoal, etc. I have ledges for pots and plenty of small river rock at the outer edges for marginals. Since the enlargement, the stream does not evaporate too much (the pump shut down before it was enlarged from low water levels) ..now the issue is the ugly white PVC pipe that comes from the vault to carry the water which feeds the fountainhead at the top of the stream. It needs to be disguised and I just don't think the place where it disappears into the side wall will support all 4 seasons of planting ... part of that area is at the very edge where things can dry out. He was talking about some kind of palm...it didn't seem dense enough to disguise, and I didn't like it. Anyway, I will take a photograph and post it. I was actually thinking of the hypertufa cover or even a bridge that would span the bog and conceal the pipe below. ...it doesn't seem to me that the bridge will fit well unless I landscape differently. Maybe once I post the photo you will come up with one of your great suggestions. Already you have given ideas for the plantings - I do appreciate the time you took to do it too! Thanks so much.

Really sorry, I thought you were talking about a big deep ditch type thing, so no wonder your confused by my ideas, but hey, when you excite me with things like bog gardening etc, then it only take moments for my brain to go into full auto, I love parts of a garden that has different areas like different rooms in your house, we dress them differently, so why not the garden, I also like surprises, hate to see everything in a garden all at the same time, turn a corner and be thrilled my dad always said, but lines of plants are for eating, he was right I think. good luck. do send a picture as we dont call sewers the same as you and all these have to be underground here in Uk unless you have a septic tank and these have to be set well away from the house or road. good luck. Weenel.

>>>turn a corner and be thrilled my dad always said<<<

I like that garden mantra


This message was edited Jan 1, 2008 4:24 PM

That's ok I was lost after t1turner mentioned the naked statue. Whoo! Wouldn't my neighbors love that! All the boys skateboard on the street in front of my house. What an eyeful they would get!
Lol.

Carol