Northumbria Police

Garden and Plants

Planting prickly hedges and thorny climbing plants not only make your garden look attractive and enviromentally friendly, but can also act as a powerful deterrent to would-be intruders.

Take a look below and see which plants could help you protect your property:

Defensive shrubs and trees

Berberis (gagnepainii) 

A large thorny shrub which can grow up to 1.5m with razor sharp leaves.

Colletia

Very thorny shrub grows up to 1.5m with scented white flowers.

Crataegus (prunifolia)

Grown as a shrub with a lot of very strong thorns.

Hippophae ( rhamnoides)

Wind and salt tolerant, dense shrub which grows up to 2m.

Prunus (spinosa)

Grown as either a dense shrub or small tree up to 6ft, produces sloe berries.

Rubus (cockburnianus)

Tall, spine covered, whitewashed stems forming a wall of thorns.

Ulex (europaeus) 

as above with double yellow flowers.

Good Climbers

American Pillar

Strong growing with bright pink flowers, grows up to 6ft.

Compassion

Vigorous in growth with large, double, pink to apricot fragment blooms.  Grows to 10ft.

New Dawn 

Silvery pink flowers, will grow up to 10ft.

Marigold

Sharply thorned climber with scented flowers.  Grows to 10ft.