What would you plant in your roadside ditch?

I want to provide a screen for some privacy between the road and the property. In our area, this needs to be at least 30ft from the center of the road or it might get cut. This leaves that spot between the break and the road. What would you plant there to make the space be useful?

It would be good if it could attract birds, bugs, butterflies and similar for either food or habitat (with the knowledge that it might get mowed a couple times a year.
It needs to regrow because the town might mow it a couple times a year.
I don't plan to eat anything from that side due to all potential for runoff from the road.
It needs to be hearty because of all the salt that comes off the road in the winter.
The spot is about 500 feet long, so it needs to be affordable to do for a long stretch.

Any ideas?

Black Oil Sunflowers offers food for birds, you, etc.

Joe Pyle Weed for Monarch Butterflies.

Anne Miller wrote:Black Oil Sunflowers offers food for birds, you, etc.

Joe Pyle Weed for Monarch Butterflies.

I like both of these suggestions. I learned something too. For some reason I always thought of Joe Pye Weed as a southern plant, but when I looked it up... it is here in Maine.

I wonder about elderflower?
They might stand up to mowing once established...ours is always sending up new plants.

and comfrey for pollinaters although it's not tall it will tolerate mowing.

There's always roses...what I call 'ditch roses' here...smallish pink blooms...will climb a little if there's anything near by...mowing occasionally wouldn't hurt them but twice a year might be too much?

I think Switchgrass might be a nice screen for your location. It could take to the mowing, provides habitat, and I really enjoy the look. Maybe mix in some little bluestem and other native grasses?

Judith Browning wrote:I wonder about elderflower?...

I plan to grow these, but will probably do it farther away as I don't want them mowed :)

Judith Browning wrote:and comfrey for pollinaters although it's not tall it will tolerate mowing.

I always think of comfrey for the leaves for chop and drop or it's medicinal value... I forget they have very nice flowers too.

Timothy Norton wrote:I think Switchgrass might be a nice screen for your location. It could take to the mowing, provides habitat, and I really enjoy the look. Maybe mix in some little bluestem and other native grasses?

Interesting idea, but the shelter for wildlife would go away if it was mowed.

I'm actually starting to wonder if I break the two apart. Maybe make a break farther from the road and plant the ditch with something shorter that might not need to be mowed as much.

I might not plant much of anything other than maybe throwing seeds of local native plants that I like into it. Other than that, just leave it to nature to do what it wants with it. I did that with about twenty-foot strip between our yard and the road. I mow a couple feet along the edge of the road and around the mailbox, so the county doesn't spray it.

I did plant a couple seed grown peach trees and some grape vines, but I don't tend to them. It looked sort of bad for a few years before other things crowded out the grasses but now native ceder, black locust, multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle and wild blackberries are dominant, and critters of various descriptions live in it.  Looking that way from the house and yard, you can't tell a road is over there. It's a total of about 20 feet by 400 feet; I didn't spend any money at all on it.

I see you mentioned the "town" might mow it. I'm pretty far from anything resembling a town. I may be able to get by with more of what some might consider sloppy landscaping, but I like it that way.

My side of the ditch has a mixture of grass, ditch lily's, and tuberosa (milk / butterfly weed). they come back each spring for the past few decades.

Do not count on the right of way being closely observed. Our county has been mowing beyond the 33' center line. One year they even came into our driveway to mow around the mailbox. I put in 2 steel fenceposts along the driveway so that was a one-time deal. They do not seem to mow much beyond 7 or 8 feet from the shoulder along the township road on our north line. Another caution is the spraying of weeds deemed noxious by the weed police. They have sprayed far beyond the right of way near here and on my good friend's property about 12 miles NE of here, same county. I made a deal with the county that I would spot mow any weeds in our ditches if they would agree not to spray, that has been honored to date. They seem to have some respect for organic agriculture, take your wins where you can.

Matt McSpadden wrote: I'm actually starting to wonder if I break the two apart. Maybe make a break farther from the road and plant the ditch with something shorter that might not need to be mowed as much.

Story Time:
I biked my children to school from Grade 1 on. Little kids on small bikes are short. The oldest was no problem, but I admit my youngest was a space cadet at that age.

So I'm following my youngest and a lady is backing her van out of her driveway two houses from the school, paying all her attention to the school direction, not the direction my kid and I were coming from. I yelled, and yelled, for my youngest to stop, but he didn't hear me. The lady's preschooler was in a car seat in the back looking right at me and I could hear her say through the glass, "Top, Mommy, Top!!!".

Mommy "topped". If she'd looked our way, it was while my son was too short to be seen over the tall plants that were right by the end of the driveway. The next morning, all those tall plants were gone. A few weeks later, some very pretty plants that were naturally lower growing, had been planted.

So, yes, I'll back "something shorter" near the road. I realize I live in an area where bike use is actively promoted and that many people live where it's actively discouraged, but with fuel prices, that might suddenly shift. Locally, they're starting to charge families to use the school bus, and I can think of past families where that would have been all they needed to get their kids onto biking.

Just because you always turn your vehicle and drive out front ways instead of backing, doesn't mean some delivery truck or visitor won't know to do that.

Similar but different, but Canadian standards, making sure the mailbox can be easily reached and isn't attracting things that might accidentally sting the mailman is considered polite. I suspect there are even official rules about it that would allow the Postal Service to stop delivering if you make their job harder or more dangerous.

Doug's point about spraying is worth taking seriously, councils can be pretty aggressive about what they consider weeds near roads. Native wildflower mixes that are low-growing tend to survive better than anything tall and shrubby, and they're harder to argue with as a nuisance. Yarrow, wild strawberry, and creeping thyme all handle occasional mowing and come back reliably.

“Ditch lily” (daylily)?

I like the low growing native wildflowers idea too, though. I think I’ve also seen currants growing in that sort of environment.

Matt, are huckleberries native to your area?  

I'm trying to think of perennials that have a natural "bush" height, so they would grow in your nearer row without needing a lot of care. I have started some Salal to use that way and I considered Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo ) except that it can grow much taller than I think you want.

Jay Angler wrote:Matt, are huckleberries native to your area?  

I'm trying to think of perennials that have a natural "bush" height, so they would grow in your nearer row without needing a lot of care. I have started some Salal to use that way and I considered Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo ) except that it can grow much taller than I think you want.

Apparently the black huckleberry is supposed to be native to maine... though I am not very familiar with it. They are supposed to not get over 3ft tall.

M Ljin wrote:“Ditch lily” (daylily)?

I like the low growing native wildflowers idea too, though. I think I’ve also seen currants growing in that sort of environment.

Hmmm, daylillies could be good... though deer to like them. At the same time, I suspect I will have enough other delicious stuff on the property that having them near the road would not attract them any more than otherwise.

Doug and Joao,
I hear you about the spray and mowing. Maine towns are supposed to abide by no spray signs... but it really depends on the person doing the mowing or spraying. I'll have to reach out to the town and get more information.

Another thing to consider near the road is how appealing your plants are to deer. On a very quiet road, this might not matter, but I get a lot of screeching brakes due to deer scaring cars, so I wouldn't want to plant things that I know the deer like.

Example: deer don't like daffodils, but they're happy to munch both my tulips and my daylilies (particularly the flower buds).

For your visual screen, I would plant things that will grow from cuttings.
Elderberry is my current favorite, but josta berry is equally vigorous, in my experience.
If you grow grape vines, you will get a lot of cover, and they are also easy to start from cuttings
If you string a cable from point to point, you can grow vines along it, with minimal infrastructure.
Jerusalem artichokes can form a tall thicket, pretty quickly.
Native reed

For the low cover, I agree that flowers will be welcome where other plants are scorned.
Yarrow fits your criteria.

Where I grew up, in West Central Wisconsin,  there always seemed to be ample asparagus growing in the ditches.  I'm not sure why.  I remember a lot of the old timers driving around on the country roads and picking asparagus in the spring from their favorite "patch".  This is all to say that asparagus likes to grow in ditches.  And I like asparagus.

Stag horn sumac would grow there, mugwort gets pretty tall but not to tall, milkweed, cattail (if wet enough), autumn olive, willows. If you got one of those ‘green spaces’ that has a field or meadow nearby that gets mowed once a year or two that would give you an idea of what can handle getting cut.

William Bronson wrote: For your visual screen, I would plant things that will grow from cuttings.
Elderberry is my current favorite, but josta berry is equally vigorous, in my experience.
If you grow grape vines, you will get a lot of cover, and they are also easy to start from cuttings
If you string a cable from point to point, you can grow vines along it, with minimal infrastructure.
Jerusalem artichokes can form a tall thicket, pretty quickly.
Native reed

For the low cover, I agree that flowers will be welcome where other plants are scorned.
Yarrow fits your criteria.

Yarrow is a great example of a rhizomatous spreading native perennial.  I have been having great success with obedient plant in providing a thick mat of rhizomes that doesn't allow other plants to establish as well.  I planted some obedient plant in a tree ring around a young oak in my front yard, and it is providing an excellent "soft landing" while keeping crab grass and other "weeds" at bay.  Something for you all to consider at an edge habitat like a ditch.  

Matt McSpadden wrote:I want to provide a screen for some privacy between the road and the property. In our area, this needs to be at least 30ft from the center of the road or it might get cut. This leaves that spot between the break and the road. What would you plant there to make the space be useful?
It would be good if it could attract birds, bugs, butterflies and similar for either food or habitat (with the knowledge that it might get mowed a couple times a year.
It needs to regrow because the town might mow it a couple times a year.
I don't plan to eat anything from that side due to all potential for runoff from the road.
It needs to be hearty because of all the salt that comes off the road in the winter.
The spot is about 500 feet long, so it needs to be affordable to do for a long stretch.
Any ideas?

Well, Matt, I'm exactly in your situation: a long road and a county crew that loves to come and cut stuff down. And yes, the distance is 30 ft from the center of the road, which does encompass basically the whole ditch. I do not want to plant in the ditch because as soon as there are flowers (and pollinators visiting them), the county crew comes by and mows it, killing the pollinators. Lucky when it's not the phone crew that will actually spray sh...tuff to kill hazelnuts. I tried to explain to them that hazelnuts will never reach the phone lines, but it's like talking to a wall.
Since our oaks have the wilt (and we can't sell that wood to anyone who might move it off the property), I've taken to cutting  the dead oaks and the brush and pile it ...just out of their reach in one long 600 ft berm.
While it isn't as pretty as a bed of pansies and lilies and tulips, the added elevation causes the salty runoff from the road to stay in the ditch and move on. I keep my water. Think of the ditch as a swale... that you are not allowed to use.
I'm also accumulating a great deal of biomass which in time will rot and give me room for a nice hedge. It's only about 3ft high, but hey, water can't go uphill, so even a small obstacle works wonders. I toss in there the seeds I didn't get to plant. Now, I have a number of false indigo and staghorn sumac.
The only view is a big field of potatoes, or soybeans, or whatever they decide to crop that year, so I won't miss the view, plus, the hedge will cut the harsh winter winds. There is a big empty field to our North/North West.
I also have a second berm  much higher, (5-6 ft) about 20 ft closer to the house. The winter snows accumulate in between the 2 berms instead of getting lost to me. (We are in sand country, so keeping as much water as possible is important to me.) I started growing some spruce, white pines and whatever will grow on its own there.
In that higher berm, on the protected side, we now have a lot of wildlife: squirrels, quails, rabbits, wild turkeys. I even saw a pheasant a couple of years ago.
This barrier also make the movement of the deer more predictable, which is handy since hubby likes to hunt...I've given up attempting to plant anything in the ditch itself since it is sure to get wrecked once or twice a year.
Your soil, climate of direction of the winds might make you want to do something else, but I just thought I'd get your creative juices flowing ...
Good luck. Let us know what you decide...

Up here in Black Hills, SD (Zone 4b-5a) our neighbors have a long row of lilac bushes that totally screen their property from the road even in winter. They are 8-12'tall and have spread out thick. Little birds nest in them. That might work??

Eileen Grow wrote:Up here in Black Hills, SD (Zone 4b-5a) our neighbors have a long row of lilac bushes that totally screen their property from the road even in winter. They are 8-12'tall and have spread out thick. Little birds nest in them. That might work??

hi Eileen!
I've wondered about this...have just this spring cut to the ground an old overgrown lilac that borders our property.  It has an amazing spread of suckers popping up over several square feet of ground that I've cut back some but love the idea of a lilac hedge.
Does your neighbors lilac bloom well?

Lilacs, once established in a thick hedge, are amazingly great at blocking road noise, offering privacy, year 'round beauty, and of course, that incredibly intoxicating scent, every spring. I lived for years, on 6.5 acres with such a lilac hedge, and while I loved it, didn't realize just how spoiled I'd become to all those benefits, until the county widened the road, entirely wiping out my beloved lilacs.

Rosa Rugosa.  In many forms blooms over 2-3 months.  Fun to see, eat, and smell, and they don’t mind being mowed.  Somehow, there are many to be seen in my area?  Recently I’ve seen more people walking in the evenings relative to these wild roses locations, so curious.

David Nightingale wrote:Rosa Rugosa.  In many forms blooms over 2-3 months.  Fun to see, eat, and smell, and they don’t mind being mowed.  Somehow, there are many to be seen in my area?  Recently I’ve seen more people walking in the evenings relative to these wild roses locations, so curious.

Ike the pike, swam into a ditch, and spied a frog on a log, with spring water so high, evening fly high on the reeds did indeed host a rose for thyne nose, at the waters edge.  
“I am haunted by waters” Norman Maclean.