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[Christopher Healy <gulftangofox AT gmail.com>]

Hiya:  Used to work for DOT several years ago.  Generally herbicides are rarely used anymore.  It got to be too expensive.  Of course every county is a resident engineer's war lord district.  But things are slowly changing.  The last time I saw one of the workers use an herbicide was around 15 years ago when he tried to apply roundup to an elm sapling stump.  I managed to stop him.  I also used to live near Lake George on a county road.  We had a drainage ditch in front too.  Sometimes it would flood out.  I don't know if you can stop the mowing.  Some engineers are more receptive than others.  By contrast, I blew a whistle on this county's engineer for creating a toxic dump in the wooded median of I-87 just north of exit 23.  He was forced to resign.  We planted locally found hardy flowers in the ditch.  Any extra herbs and plants we thought would make it were tossed in too.  On the border of the property we put a row of Autumn Olive and Caragana.  Caragana provides food for birds fixes N2 is attractive while Autumn Olive provides quick shade, and places for birds to hide and nest.  In front of that, on the state's side we put day lilys, and other flowers.  Keep in mind that the state "owns" 25 feet off the center line of the road.  Every few years they will come by with a gradall and scoop out the erosion debris and the sand they spread on the road in winter.  They would probably give you the dirt if you ask the crew foreman.  They like ice tea too, and many of them garden.  They also know all the nooks and crannies of the county and can tell you things like where all the springs are and any old abandoned farms where plant treasures can be found.  So don't put anything in that ditch you can not part with.  The crews also cut down leaners, any tree they determine to be a threat to traffic. They will give you the chips if you want them, or they will even buck the trees up into stove lengths if you want.  Chips to me equals mushrooms to eat.  .I don't know how long the salt stays in the dirt, probably not long as it dissolves in precipitation and run off

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Simon St.Laurent <simonstl AT simonstl.com> wrote:

I'm wondering if there are visible and perhaps useful things we can do with the edges of property most exposed to the public.  This list is usually a little more meta than that, but I wonder...

In a hot year when we planned to do very little gardening (we had a newborn and have a two-year-old), I've found myself doing lots of work between 6:00 and 8:00am.  Even more to my surprise, I've been doing a lot of that work near the road in front of my house, Route 366.

I have a short hill (10'?) sloping down to a ditch before the road.  The state DOT mows from the road into the ditch once or twice a year, and that area also gets lots of salt and salt spray in winter.  Occasionally the state scrapes out the ditch, though they've skipped my stretch for a while.  There's also the unfortunate regular appearance of pollutants, from oil and gasoline to antifreeze and litter - even occasionally concrete if a truck has to stop there for some reason.

Josh Dolan and I refrained from planting food crops on the hillside, though some elderberries have appeared and I'm content to leave them there.  I'm mostly doing decorative shade garden work (and poison ivy removal) on the hill, though the Edible Forest Garden has been a helpful guide even for that.

My hard question is the side of the ditch that goes to the road.  Cars don't get much of an impression, apart from the whiskey barrel of impatiens the Varna Community Association put there, but pedestrians certainly see it, and I'd like to create some kind of reward for their patience in walking that stretch.

Are there plants more appealing and perhaps productive than goldenrods, ragweed, teasel, and garlic mustard that currently survive in that environment?  Are there examples of work people have already done that I could consider for inspiration?

I'm not looking for serious design here, just a rough idea of whether this is possible enough to be worth investing some time.  I'm happy to experiment, and share the results.

Thanks,
--
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/
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-- 
Christopher- Robin Healy
Cloudburst Cultivated Ecology
Sustainable Design and Teaching and Tutoring - Permaculture
(518) 683-0209
http://gulftangofox.wordpress.com
gulftangofox AT gmail.com