Idiots that do these things with taxpayers’ money should be in jail...after beating them with branches from the shrub.
You are going to need a permit for that. Not for the beating, but to use the branches from the shrub. An ESA evaluation, with approvals from local, state, and federal officials is likely a must. You will need to show such beatings will not harm the plant and if there are any negative or positive impacts on the shrub. You will also need to complete a non-beating alternative.
Once you get those approvals, the agencies that approved your use of the branches will likely be sued at all (local, state, and federal) levels. One or more of those will issue an injunction against proceeding until more detailed analyses of the use of the branches can be completed and refute the evidence that use of such branches will not endanger the species as a whole, even though commonly found in yards and plant nursery's, but will need to refine your analysis to experts on such shrubs that grow unexpetedly in road medians.
Your opposition will have such experts.
If, you still have the energy to use such branches after that, you will likely be sued since you didn't consider the social justice impats of using a part of the shrub found in the median. You will need to evaluate what if any other uses by disadvantaged populations could have or might in the future occur both with and without your use of parts of the shrub.
Once you get through that, you will definately need to identify shrub part recycling plans and mitigate the CO2 emissions from the action of using the branches plus all of the extra CO2 emission you made that caused 40,000 pages of legal motions, miles driven, paper used, etc., that you caused to happen by wanting to use a part of the shrub in the first place.