Volunteers needed to maintain U.S. 17 Bypass landscaping on South Strand

For a dozen years, Lou Krieger labored in the medians of U.S. 17 Bypass.

Krieger and two buddies planted crape myrtles, palm trees and knockout roses. Every summer, they spent a few days each week cutting grass, spraying weed killer and trimming trees.

But the 67-year-old Krieger recently had back surgery, one of his pals just turned 70 and the trio just can’t maintain the medians anymore.

“It’s kind of tough to go out there and do that,” Krieger said. “It was a lot of intense work.”

So what will happen to the group’s 12 years of toil? If other volunteers don’t step up, the South Carolina Department of Transportation will raze the landscaping and maintain the leftover grass through bush-hogging. Medians in Carolina Forest have faced similar straits.

“This is one of the most established and beautiful areas in Horry County,” said Leigh Kane, a senior planner with county government who assists the Keep Horry County Beautiful Committee. “I’m concerned that this is going to end up getting the same threat that happened to the Carolina Forest area. It kind of really goes against the beautification plan that Keep Horry County Beautiful has been trying to pursue.”

Krieger originally took on the project while working as a radio host at Sunny 106.5. He got tired of driving past the manicured medians in Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island and wanted to spruce up the area near the radio studio.

Krieger and company initially maintained a two-mile stretch of landscaped beds from Glenns Bay Road to the Garden City Connector. Road construction eliminated some of that vegetation, but the three kept up the work, even hosting an annual golf tournament to raise money for their efforts.

“My name was on it,” Krieger said. “We enjoyed going out there doing it. But as we got older, it got to be a little bit more of a chore than it was when we were 12 years younger.”

County officials are asking anyone interested in taking on the project to call Nancy Tindall with the Keep Horry County Beautiful Committee at 843-915-7893. They said the work could be divided among several groups. The committee will provide safety vests, gloves and trash bags.

One certainty: The project must be handled by volunteers.

“There is no public funding for that,” said Bo Ives, chairman of the Keep Horry County Beautiful Committee. “Carolina Forest has tried. They (state officials) don’t want to start that. They start it one place, they’ve got to do it all over.”

Ives said the committee hopes some garden clubs or civic groups will step up.

“I don’t think anyone wants to see those islands bush-hogged,” he said. “That’s just terrible.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 4:17 PM with the headline "Volunteers needed to maintain U.S. 17 Bypass landscaping on South Strand."