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Landscaping as part of your Natural Home Security

The use of landscaping as part of your Natural Home Security is one of the most important action steps against trespassing and random burglaries as it establishes natural and visible boundaries. Strategically placed planting will discourage trespassers and burglars.

Consider the following points before selecting and planting.

• Will your children or grandchildren be playing in the garden?
• Will your pets make use of your garden?
• If you accidentally trip and fall into the plants – don’t let a Positive become a Negative
• Will the plant be Pollinator friendly? –
  • “All Ireland Pollinator Plan is an All-Ireland initiative both North and South of the border to create a network of pollinator friendly sites across the country.  One third of bee species in decline in Ireland and this is an action to reverse this trend.  County Councils, schools, businesses, Tidy Towns Groups etc. All participating and planting pollinator-friendly plants”. (Mairead Stack, NatureCubsIreland.)

The below plant selection will help with your decision to select what’s right for your garden, security, and the environment.

Pyracantha ‘Orange Glow’ (firethorn) – Pyracantha are evergreen shrubs or small trees, with spiny branches bearing simple leaves and corymbs of small white flowers followed by showy red, orange or yellow berries. Pollinator friendly

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Eryngium bourgatii ‘Oxford Blue’ & ‘Picos Blue’ (sea holly) – Eryngium can be annuals, biennials or perennials with simple or divided leaves, often spiny edged, and cone-like flower-heads often surrounded by an involucre of conspicuous spiny bracts. ‘Jos Eijking’ is another great Eryringium cultivar with intensely blue stems and flowers.

Rosa rugose (Japanese rose) – Rugosa roses are upright shrubs with very prickly stems bearing handsome, glossy, wrinkled foliage and fragrant, single or semi-double flowers in summer and autumn, often followed by large, tomato-like red hips.

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Rubus cockburnianus (white-stemmed bramble) – Rubus is a thicket-forming shrub which has arching prickly shoots with a brilliant white bloom in winter. Pinnate leaves 20cm long with lance-shaped leaflets are dark green above and white-hairy beneath. Racemes of saucer-shaped purple flowers 1cm across are followed by rounded unpalatable black fruits

Colletia paradoxa (anchor plant) – Colletia is a rounded deciduous shrub to 3m, with stems bearing many blue-green, flattened, triangular spines and small clusters of fragrant white flowers in autumn.

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Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry) – Berberis can be deciduous or evergreen shrubs with spiny shoots bearing simple, often spine-toothed leaves, and small yellow or orange flowers in axillary clusters or racemes, followed by small berries. Pollinator friendly.

Mahonia × media ‘Lionel Fortescue’ (Oregon grape) – Mahonia are evergreen shrubs with leathery, pinnate leaves which are often spine-toothed, and clustered racemes of sometimes fragrant yellow flowers, sometimes followed by black or purple berries. Pollinator friendly

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Ilex aquifolium (common holly) – Ilex can be deciduous or evergreen shrubs and trees with often spiny leaves, small white flowers (male and female usually on separate plants) and, on female plants, showy berries in autumn. Lovely native Irish species.

Other plants to consider:

• Crataegus monogyna – common hawthorn – Pollinator friendly
• Prunus spinose – spinosa blackthorn – Pollinator friendly

Also consider adding the following pollinator-friendly thorny bushes:

• Broom: flowers all Springtime.                      Very thorny.
• Gorse: flowers in Autumn.                             Very thorny.
• Bramble or Blackberry: Flowers in summer. Very thorny.