Understanding Defensive Gardening And Its Benefits
Security is a major priority for homeowners, and with the rise in burglaries across the region, this has become even more vital. While you may be focusing your security efforts inside your home, there are ways you can make your garden safer and protective to avoid issues.
Defensive gardening is a way of designing your outdoor space so it protects your home, deters burglars and prevents break-ins all without ruining visual appeal.
As a premier landscaping company, Beautiful Spaces understands how garden design plays a role in home security. While you may not have given it much thought before, your garden could be a prime target for criminals and a way to gain entry to your home, which is why defensive gardening is so useful.
In this post, we are sharing everything you need to know about defensive hardening and sharing our best tips to transform your garden into a secure, protective environment for greater peace of mind.
What Is Defensive Gardening?
Defensive gardening is a way of using your outdoor space as both a deterrent and a protective measure for your home. Burglars and criminals will take advantage of any open space to gain access to your home, which is why your garden should be strategically designed to avoid this.
There has been a rise in criminal activity across the region, which has made more people consider the various ways they can protect their homes and families. While investing in alarms and security cameras is the obvious step, and a great solution for peace of mind, defensive gardening can also be incredibly beneficial.
This gardening method focuses on creating outdoor spaces that are difficult to get into from the outside. In some cases, your garden could become an active defence against break-ins based on the layout, plants chosen, and structural installations.
Designing A Secure Outdoor Space: Defensive Gardening Strategies
Defensive gardening covers a wide range of areas and can be customised to suit your specific needs. Some of the foundations of this gardening method include:
Good Quality Fencing
Fencing is your garden’s primary shield and is therefore a vital part of defensive gardening. To keep your outdoor space secure, you want to invest in good-quality fencing. Whether timber or composite, fences 6 feet or under can be installed without planning permission to create a secure and private outdoor space.
Good quality fencing is hard-wearing and designed to last, meaning it will always shield your garden. Not only does the material of your fencing matter, but the installation process does too. How your garden fence is installed will determine whether it will withstand the test of time and remain a secure screen for your outdoor space.
This is why working with professional landscape gardeners, like Beautiful Spaces, is the best way to get new fencing. You also need to ensure any damage or worn fencing panels are repaired quickly to maintain the structural integrity of your garden and, by extension, home.
Additional measures such as metal security fencing, sturdy locks for garden gates, and even anti-climb paints or spikes should be considered, especially if you live in a higher-risk area or are surrounded by properties.
Motion-Sensored Lights
Garden lighting is both a decorative and functional tool for your outdoor space, and can play a large role in defensive gardening. Keeping your garden illuminated at night can deter criminals from lying in wait, as there is simply nowhere to hide.
One of the best tools for home security is motion-sensor lights. These security lights are a common installation in both front and back gardens, as they provide reliable illumination and can deter criminal activity. At any sign of motion, these lights will trigger, flooding the garden in bright illumination so criminals have nowhere to hide or cannot escape unnoticed.
Both motion-sensor lights and solar-powered garden lighting are great tools for defensive gardening because they keep your garden illuminated without expensive energy bills.
Ongoing Garden Maintenance
Another underrated area of defensive gardening is garden maintenance and keeping your space clear. With frequent gardening, you can keep your landscape clear and ensure that all corners are visible.
Gardens that are overgrown offer plenty of hiding spaces for criminals and could make your home more of a target. Garden maintenance is a year-round commitment that needs particular attention during the blooming seasons of plants, trees and shrubs. During these times of the year, primarily spring and summer, your garden can quickly become overgrown. With regular pruning, lawn mowing and cleaning, your garden remains a safe space and avoids being targeted.
While most plants enter their dormant phase during winter, autumn is another high-risk season as debris can quickly gather up. Piles of logs, leaves, and unkempt lawns can be hiding spots for criminals or their tools, so ensure you maintain your garden regularly, even when the weather takes a turn.
Planting For Protection: Top Picks For Security Planting
While there are some structural ways you can make your garden more secure and protect your home, landscaping also has a role to play. Security planting is a way of taking advantage of specific plants and shrubs to protect your garden, and by extension, your home.
As landscaping experts, Beautiful Spaces has great arboricultural knowledge and can supply a wide range of plants to our clients. Defensive gardening can be enhanced by adding dense, spiky, and potentially painful plants and shrubs across your landscape.
Dense shrubs and spiky plants make accessing your garden difficult, and criminals know they are going to have a tough job entering your property. With this in mind, security planting is both a deterrent and an active defence for your home’s security, and some of the best solutions for this include:
Holly
Famed for its festive appearance with lush green leaves and bright red berries, Holly is also one of the best security plants. This evergreen shrub has prickly leaves, which can quickly catch the skin or clothing, making it a great barrier for your garden and home. The glossy leaves act as both a deterrent and a protection tool for your home, while also being incredibly attractive.
As it is evergreen, Holly maintains its dense foliage all year long so it will continue to protect your home, no matter the weather.
Hawthorn
Hawthorn gets both its name and its reputation from the long, sharp thorns which grow along the branches. This is a highly versatile security plant that can be grown as either a shrub or a tree to align with your garden’s needs. It thrives in a range of soil conditions and climates, making it an ideal solution for all kinds of gardens and requires little maintenance.
Like Holly, Hawthorn is not just a useful part of defensive gardening, but it also looks great. The spiky thorns are a great deterrent, and the bright fruits and autumn foliage make it an attractive addition to any outdoor space. These shrubs also provide an excellent habitat for wildlife, as the nectar-rich fruits attract pollinators, and the berries provide food for birds.
Pyracantha
This late-blooming shrub is often used to add colour to your autumn or winter garden, as it produces vibrant flowers and berries late in the year. The rich hues of orange, red and yellow can add colour to your garden late into the season, but it offers more than just visual appeal.
With its dense, thorny branches, Pyracantha is an excellent solution for defensive gardening. It should be planted against fences or garden walls to provide additional security, as getting past these dense hedges will be difficult. Like Holly, this is an evergreen shrub which continues to provide beauty and protection to your outdoor space throughout the year.
Berberis
Berberis is a very dense plant that grows thick and full during the spring and summer. There are evergreen variants of Berberis which will keep their thick foliage all year round, but no matter which option you choose, this is a great wildlife-friendly addition to your garden.
The dense foliage and bright flowers look great, and also attract a wide range of insects, pollinators and birds to your garden. When planted against fencing, garden walls or as a structural addition to garden zones, passage through your garden is difficult as the thick branches take hold.
Conclusion
Defensive gardening can be a useful tool to protect your home and family while also creating an attractive outdoor space. Using a combination of dense security planting, hard-wearing fencing, and bright motion-sensor lights, you can create an outdoor space that actively deters criminals.
Making access to your home difficult can be done by making strategic planting and placement options. Creating a dense, thorny barrier to your garden means criminals will have a tough time accessing your home, and are more likely to avoid targeting you in the process.
Some amazing evergreen shrubs and plants will protect your home all year long, and Beautiful Spaces is here to make the process easier. With our planting expertise and garden maintenance services, we can help you create a protective outdoor space that offers the security your home needs.
Contact Us Today
Are you ready to create an attractive and secure garden? Contact us to learn more about our services or to request a quote.
