Defensive gardening
Gardening is an enjoyable activity that yields beautiful results, but did you know that gardening can also help secure your home? Here are some ideas for keeping your home safe and your garden looking lovely.
Pick some prickly plants
Fences provide little deterrent against determined thieves, but with the use of some spiky plants, you can make it even harder for them to get onto your property.
Climbing roses are a particularly pretty addition to any garden, but their spiky stems are also painful when grasped. They’re also perfect for growing along fences and walls, doubling the defence.
You could also consider surrounding your house of garden with a spiky hedge. Holly is an attractive evergreen, although it does require regular maintenance to control growth. Mahonia is another good choice, thanks to its fragrant winter blossoms, berries that attract garden birds, and a spiky, holly-like leaf that deters burglars.
You could also consider planting borders filled with spiny hedges and flowers behind fences, making it much harder for an intruder to jump across. Wider borders also make it harder for burglars to escape, again reducing the attractiveness of your property for a break-in.
Keep your windows clear
Plants that grow across your windows provide cover for would-be burglars to hide behind as they scout out target houses. If you trim foliage and plants around your windows, thieves have nowhere to lurk, making your house a lot less attractive to a would-be burglar.
