Looking for landscaping // structure ideas on how to make this holding tank cover less of an eye sore. It is in the middle of the yard so everything we have envisioned just looks awkward! We don’t want to simply put bushes or a giant fake rock over it.
Criteria: it has to be accessible but we know when they come to empty it, so it can be something that is removable!
Notes:
– we aren’t going to move the holding tank and also cannot make it a lower profile (so it doesn’t stick out as much!) because it’s so expensive to do those options!
– pictures are taken from the road (yes I know the grass really needs work too! 😂🫣 open to tips on that as well! The road floods a lot and the dirt under the grass is really hard so it just seems to die // look brown all the time)
by dweeber11
8 Comments
Make it a feature.
The reason everything you envision looks awkward is because you are trying to hide an isolated bump by just covering it up. You need to incorporate that tank into a sweeping landscape bed so it stops floating like an island in a sea of grass. Build a lightweight slatted cedar bench or a bottomless planter box that slides right over the whole concrete assembly. Cedar handles the weather but stays light enough for two people to drag out of the way when the pump truck shows up. Ground that wooden structure with a curved bed of native ornamental grasses and perennials that flow naturally toward the driveway so the whole area looks like a planned focal point.
Before you buy lumber or start ripping up turf, run a photo of this spot through the GardenDream web app. You can drop different planter boxes and plant layouts right over the tank to figure out the exact scale and shape you need to make it look intentional. As for that dead brown dirt by the road, you have severe compaction combined with standing water. Core aerate the hell out of it, rake in a heavy layer of compost, and carve out a shallow rain garden planted with deep rooted native plants that actually want to drink that floodwater. Nature is flat out telling you grass does not belong there so stop fighting it.
Plant some mountain laurel bushes around it.
Big fake rock.
Plastic, but it looks ok. You can plant flowers around it. But it pops right off when needed.
Or surround it with bushes? That might not be great when they pump it.
https://preview.redd.it/jw3fqadilmqg1.png?width=864&format=png&auto=webp&s=59b94014d87d2307b01700d953a8012fbe490e67
You eliminated the only option that will really work – bushes.
Did anyone else’s mind go straight to [DayZ](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dayz_gamepedia/images/2/29/WaterPump_Blue_1a.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1200?cb=20200902182842)?
Get some roman stone and some timbers and build a fake old time well around it