I called DOT to determine the exact footage of the right-of-way. (They were five feet over the line.) Then I put marker tape and some metal pipes to help protect my plants. It really didn't help. Then I sent a fairly long letter to our local newspaper, and that was followed by a flurry of letters and comments by others who also hated what they were doing in Guilford Co. It helped for a while, but several years later I guess a new crew was hired. They subcontract most of this work, no arborist involved, just guys with big machines.

I guess you could say the letter writing was most effective, even if only for a few years. Get a group together and start sending emails to your area papers.

I know how you feel. I live south of Greensboro and the shoulder maintenance crews travel up and down Route 421 each fall with something that looks like it should be used to cut grass. They turn it vertical and chew all the vegetation that it touches. Some branches are mangled and eventually the whole tree dies. In the meantime, for miles, the treeline is an ugly mess. I don't know who you could complain to in order to stop that, since the shoulder is state owned.

Here in Swain County, they use that mower looking thing but only where the trees are close to the power lines. I hate seeing the trees cut, but its hard enough keeping the power going in the winter up here, so I don't begrudge Duke Energy doing what they have to do before the snow and ice does what it will do

Around here they actually damage the trees, to the point they become MORE of a hazard during ice storms and hurricanes!

So the electric companies are responsible? Now I have someone to complain to...

You guys should be writing the Extension and County. Your voices they need to hear.
Doesn't NC State handle the regulations for the horticulture industry there, which includes maintaining parks, roadsides etc?

botanical_drifter

NC State and Extension are connected, but I don't think they have anything to do with roadside maintenance. I was involved with Extension for 10 years, and we never talked about this subject.

The power companies usually handle that, using contract crews, and often times DOT will send out crews. In our area the county picks up trash collected by volunteers,even some dead animals, if you call, The tree companies are hired by some of the above, I believe. Once when I had a tree leaning into the road, I called the county, and they sent a person out to cut it down. However, they left all of the large pieces on the side of the road...no cleanup involved.

Not only do they do a terrible job with that machine, they also think the right way to prune trees is to top them, reducing even big limbs to blunt stumps, and getting rid of all the fine branches that make a tree beautiful. I have never lived anywhere else where trees are valued so little, though I do think some towns have ordinances against ruining trees. It actually weakens trees to prune them that way.

Arguably, it's not any worse than the perpetual crapemyrtle hacking that "professional landscapers" continually do...

How many years have southern university extension services and botanical gardens and legit arborists been telling the public not to hat-rack their crapes and yet it's still rampant.

Gusolie - That was the FIRST thing that came to my mind when I read the title of the post. That drives me insane and it's flippin' ugly too.

I know that in some areas, the wooded area close to the road.. the trees are so unhealthy that they have had to go in and mow the entire area down and prepare it to start growing again. It looks like crap but I don't know.. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing to say there is a better way so I kind of shrug when I see it and hope new stuff grows soon lol.

Now that thing they do to the trees near the power lines is absolutely horrible. When we bought our house, I was particular about not having those large trees right against the power lines.

When I opened this thread I was expecting to read complaints about littering. When I moved to eastern NC abt 15 yrs ago, I was dumbfounded by the amount of trash I saw along roadways. All these years later, I don't see much (if any) improvement. It makes me wonder if NC opted out of the national 'Don't Be a Litterbug' campaign of the 50's and 60's. That effort brought about HUGE improvements elsewhere.

The horrific hacking of all vegetation along roads seems to a 'technique' that's being implemented with abandon throughout the state. In addition to the new eyesore it creates, it serves to make the old eyesore (litter) even more painfully obvious.

Amen to that, Windeaux. I think of that TV commercial, "Don't be a Litterbug!" every time I drive into town. Maybe they should bring back those commercials.

NC does not seem to value trees and what they are doing at the 421/Woody Mill interchange is criminal. A new bridge is being built and developers in the area (as well as the state?) have taken the opportunity to log about 100 acres of trees near the site. If it were necessary for the bridge I could understand, but they have taken down trees nowhere near where the bridge will be. It is devastating.