Trellis idea

Just had an idea cross my mind. Those anchor cables on power poles seem like they would make a pretty good trellis. I wonder what the power company would say if I had my hops growing up their cable. Does anyone think it would cause a problem?

I doubt any power company would be okay with that. I doubt they'd bother notifying anyone before they either ripped it out or poisoned it...

Cheers!

There are wild hops growing up the anchor cables or some old power lines by my house. The problem is all the cones are 20+ ft in the air and unharvestable.

I got old power line cables and used them to make my own trellis

There is no way they will give permission to you to grow them. They purposely spray them to prevent to much growth.

If a "wild" bine happened to grow up it, they may or may not do anything. Sure, you could harvest but I'm pretty sure you would get in major trouble if the utility came along and saw you with a ladder leaned against one of their power poles.

The other problem is hops have a hard time grabbing steel cable. They are bines with little hooks like velcro. Smooth surfaces don't do well. Find a dead tree or just a tree with a long branch and casually drop a line down from that to a "wild" rhizome you plant. You'll have a better shot.

Of course, if its on public property, someone else may harvest it before you.

I wasn't thinking about the poles on public property. I was thinking about the pole in my yard where I'm the one actually cutting the grass around it.

Still, most utilities have guidelines set up on what to plant and not plant by their poles. They have an easement right and that right allows the to trim or remove tree or other plantings as they see fit to protect the reliability of the power supply. That means a bine growing up their pole and coming close to providing a short will be removed.

Sorry man, I don't want to rain on your parade but I also don't want you to get your hopes up only to find a withered bine in your back yard some warm July day.