When you think of home security, the first things that come to mind are high-definition security cameras and floodlights installed in the most strategic areas of your property. While these innovations do a lot to help us feel safer and more secure, you can also incorporate some landscaping techniques to your overall security plan.
Apart from having beds of beautiful flowers, manicured lawns, impressive outdoor furniture and breathtaking water features, these landscaping tips can ward away potential burglary and crimes on your property.
Eliminate Hiding Areas
Shrubs near the back door and tall trees adjacent to a second-floor window can easily become intruders’ points of entry. They can conceal themselves from the bushes and make their way silently to the upper floors by hiding and climbing up on trees. With that amount of access and cover, burglars only need to take their time until you’re gone from home before they attack.
If this is the case for your current landscape, consult a landscape design Houston Texas contractor to help you redesign your landscape in such a way that it eliminates, if not limits, hiding spots. The contractor might suggest transplanting tall trees away from your doors and windows. You also want to keep bushes and shrubs pruned and trimmed to a reasonable height in such a way that you directly see the expanse of your yard while maintaining your privacy from the neighbors.
Thorny Shrubs
You might think that you can wrap your fence with barbed wires to deter intruders. But doing so would also make the entire landscape design unappealing. An excellent and natural way to prevent burglars is to plant thorny shrubs under your windows. Thorns can hurt as much as barbed wires do, but they don’t take away the landscape beauty. However, you want to keep the plants’ height just a little below the window level so to prevent them from becoming potential hiding areas.
Consider Security Plants
Like thorny shrubs, security plants also make it impractical, even painful, to try to penetrate. Security plants are often thorny, itchy and prickly. They can tear into the burglar’s skin should he barge abruptly, leaving behind a DNA trace that can be useful for the investigation. Some of the best security plants you can put in your landscape include holly, roses, blackthorn and hawthorn.
Regular Landscape Maintenance
Nothing screams “nobody’s home” as much as uncared for landscape does. When a burglar targets a home, he’d naturally want to do it when the house is empty. An unkempt lawn, unswept leaves, dirty patio and moss-covered swimming pool, are tell-tale signs that it’s time to attack.
However, the solution to this threat is easy: clean your mess up. Make sure to mow your lawns regularly, water your plants and trim them on a consistent basis. The mere sight of a wonderfully-maintained landscape indicates that the house is occupied and the intruder is less likely to make it his target.
FINAL THOUGHTS
You don’t always regard as your landscape as an excellent preventive mechanism for the possible intrusion, especially now when you can have keyless entry, motion-sensor lights and CCTV cameras. But by carefully re-thinking your landscape design and consulting with a professional landscaper, you can certainly make your outdoors an effective deterrent for burglary.