Our house is on a corner. At the side of the garden is a privit hedge,
and at the end is a stone wall. The corner where the two meet is very
vulnerable to burglars, and there've recently been 3 in the street.

So... we need either barbed wire (joking) or a nice thorny bush to
make that access route less attractive.
We have a thorny bush elsewhere in the garden. The leaves are red on
one side. It'd look nice against the green privit. What is it?
What alternative bushes would do the trick?
Is it a good time to plant?

Thanks

Tony

On Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:50:05 -0700 (PDT), tonyjeffs
wrote:

Our house is on a corner. At the side of the garden is a privit hedge,
and at the end is a stone wall. The corner where the two meet is very
vulnerable to burglars, and there've recently been 3 in the street.

So... we need either barbed wire (joking) or a nice thorny bush to
make that access route less attractive.
We have a thorny bush elsewhere in the garden. The leaves are red on
one side. It'd look nice against the green privit. What is it?
What alternative bushes would do the trick?
Is it a good time to plant?

Thanks

Tony

I'm sure there's shed loads of useful prickly plant advice already so
here's my take on it:

What you can do is make sure your house isn't the one without the
alarm!
Also give your windows and frames a good clean so that if you have
SOCO out after a crime they can get good clear fingerprints.
Relevant to the garden - finely raked soil under windows that takes
good shoe impressions is useful too.

Our homewatch info says most are opportunist through open windows so
always lock all windows and doors. If you see people lurking then ring
the police. They won't mind. (Don't ring 999 unless you see something
actually happening though - ring the main number rather than going
through to a local office which is almost certainly unmanned for most
of the day. (eg: i'd ring 872 5050 which goes to the main switchboard
rather than ring Chadderton local office as I know my odds of getting
a pcso in there are slim to zero.)
That number will be in your phone book. Make a note of it somewhere
obvious if you don't already know it.
Also get to know your local pcso and get their collar number (it
starts with a 6!) and then when you ring up you can ask if they're on
by giving that number and then send them a message if they are.

If you've had 3 break ins then it's time to mobilise the neighbours
and start a home watch so people start taking notes on the dodgy
people lurking about (height, coat colour, hair colours, shoes etc)
and ringing it through to the police.
You can get a lovely pack from the homewatch man with a UV marker pen,
stickers and advice leaflets. Ours also do an over 25s sticker for the
cars.


--
http://www.freedeliveryuk.co.uk
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

In message , mogga
writes

I'm sure there's shed loads of useful prickly plant advice already so
here's my take on it:

What you can do is make sure your house isn't the one without the
alarm!
Also give your windows and frames a good clean so that if you have
SOCO out after a crime they can get good clear fingerprints.
Relevant to the garden - finely raked soil under windows that takes
good shoe impressions is useful too.

Our homewatch info says most are opportunist through open windows so
always lock all windows and doors. If you see people lurking then ring
the police. They won't mind. (Don't ring 999 unless you see something
actually happening though - ring the main number rather than going
through to a local office which is almost certainly unmanned for most
of the day. (eg: i'd ring 872 5050 which goes to the main switchboard
rather than ring Chadderton local office as I know my odds of getting
a pcso in there are slim to zero.)
That number will be in your phone book. Make a note of it somewhere
obvious if you don't already know it.
Also get to know your local pcso and get their collar number (it
starts with a 6!) and then when you ring up you can ask if they're on
by giving that number and then send them a message if they are.

If you've had 3 break ins then it's time to mobilise the neighbours
and start a home watch so people start taking notes on the dodgy
people lurking about (height, coat colour, hair colours, shoes etc)
and ringing it through to the police.
You can get a lovely pack from the homewatch man with a UV marker pen,
stickers and advice leaflets. Ours also do an over 25s sticker for the
cars.

I thought about writing something like the above advice, a prickly bush
might discourage kids and dogs, but not burglars!
The stone wall would be the easiest way in, I would think.

I fitted cameras after my fence was vandalised, and no further damage
has occurred (touch wood). I have since added two more, and they are
recorded to DVD every night and whenever the house is empty.
Apart from providing a tape of two youths who passed quickly through my
garden at 6:30am, trying doors along the row of houses, it has also
entertained me with clips of foxes and other creatures in the garden.
The cops caught and charged the two lads, who had committed a burglary
elsewhere the same morning.

My burglar alarm chap said that the fact that both my outside doors are
visible from the road is a good deterrent to casuals and professionals
alike. (I must get the Aucuba pruned back severely now the nights
are drawing in, as it could hide anyone at my front door).

I tried to start a Homewatch group in my road, and after a meeting
attended by 19 people from 100 houses I leafleted the whole road asking
them to contact me if they were interested in a further meeting.
On my way to deliver them, I found three front doors ajar, and the
response was so apathetic that I decided to maintain an informal
arrangement with a few neighbours who are able to observe each other's
houses, and make mine the least attractive to thieves.
An untidy garden helps.
I have 872 5050 programmed into my house and mobile phones.
:-)
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

I turn my back for a moment and suddenly I have 30+ replies! Thank
you :-)

I agree that once the corner is fixed, the easiest way in would be the
wall. We've been lucky so far, but the weak corner would draw the
attention of a potential burger. Currently it is there for the taking.

Cameras are something I'm thinking about it.

Our one advantage is we have a dog. His loud bark would frighten off
any burgler, unless they had the courage to get in the garden, in
which case he'd lick them to death.

Berberis. Garden centre.

I also agree that some tv programs and movies have the background
music louder than the voices and find it very annoying.

Tony

The message
from tonyjeffs contains these words:

I turn my back for a moment and suddenly I have 30+ replies! Thank
you :-)

I agree that once the corner is fixed, the easiest way in would be the
wall. We've been lucky so far, but the weak corner would draw the
attention of a potential burger. Currently it is there for the taking.

Cameras are something I'm thinking about it.

And pir-operated floodlight(s).

Our one advantage is we have a dog. His loud bark would frighten off
any burgler, unless they had the courage to get in the garden, in
which case he'd lick them to death.

Ours would have done the same - to anyone who had business there.

Any unwanted intruder would have been subjected to the full Bull Terror.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On 12 Sep, 16:11, Jennifer Sparkes wrote:
The message
from tonyjeffs contains these words:

Our house is on a corner. At the side of the garden is a privit hedge,
and at the end is a stone wall. *The corner where the two meet is very
vulnerable to burglars, and there've recently been 3 in the street.
So... we need either barbed wire (joking) or a nice thorny bush to
make that access route less attractive.

How about Poncirus trifoliata? The scent of the flowers is lovely
and it can become quite vicious ...

Jennifer

Aha!
We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
I didn't know what it was. And I didn't know it had a smell! I'll
transplant it to the corner.

Where it is, it has always been small, about 18". Perhaps smothered by
the privit. Can it grow to 7"

Tony
Thanks

Aha!
We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
I didn't know what it was. *

Nope my mistake. On closer examination it is something different. It
only has single leaves. It has the thorns though.
I'll ask at the garden centre about Poncirus trifoliata

To

"tonyjeffs" wrote in message
...

Aha!
We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
I didn't know what it was.

Nope my mistake. On closer examination it is something different. It
only has single leaves. It has the thorns though.
I'll ask at the garden centre about Poncirus trifoliata

To

Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered one is
razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

In article ,
"Robert \(Plymouth\)" writes:
| "tonyjeffs" wrote in message
| ...
|
| Aha!
| We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
| I didn't know what it was.
|
| Nope my mistake. On closer examination it is something different. It
| only has single leaves. It has the thorns though.
| I'll ask at the garden centre about Poncirus trifoliata

It may be pyracantha.

| Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered
| one is razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

Berberis vulgaris - the native species! It's rather tricky to get
and a bit slow to get established, but its spines are indeed exactly
like needles. Some of the other berberis are similar, but the most
common ones are only a little spinier than gorse.

There is also pyracantha, several roses, and probably some hawthorns
(but the native species aren't all that thorny). I can't remember
what else, but there are more.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
"Robert \(Plymouth\)" writes:
| "tonyjeffs" wrote in message
|
...
|
| Aha!
| We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the
hedge.
| I didn't know what it was.
|
| Nope my mistake. On closer examination it is something different. It
| only has single leaves. It has the thorns though.
| I'll ask at the garden centre about Poncirus trifoliata

It may be pyracantha.

| Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered
| one is razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

Berberis vulgaris - the native species! It's rather tricky to get
and a bit slow to get established, but its spines are indeed exactly
like needles. Some of the other berberis are similar, but the most
common ones are only a little spinier than gorse.

There is also pyracantha, several roses, and probably some hawthorns
(but the native species aren't all that thorny). I can't remember
what else, but there are more.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Pyracantha's lethal.

We have one at the back of our garden that I tie in every year and the
thorns go through even strong leather gloves.


Stephen

On 12/9/08 18:02, in article ,
"Robert (Plymouth)" wrote:



"tonyjeffs" wrote in message
...

Aha!
We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
I didn't know what it was.

Nope my mistake. On closer examination it is something different. It
only has single leaves. It has the thorns though.
I'll ask at the garden centre about Poncirus trifoliata

To

Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered one is
razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

Berberis are good and so is Rosa rugosa. Not many people will argue with
the many spines on the latter.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

In article ,
Sacha writes:
|
| Berberis are good and so is Rosa rugosa. Not many people will argue with
| the many spines on the latter.

But do watch out for berberis! They vary between the vicious and the
cuddly.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Robert (Plymouth)" wrote in

Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered one is
razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

I bought a berberis to plant under my grandson's bedroom window. I thought
it would stop anyone trying to get in (in the case of burglars) or out (for
when the grandson becomes a mutinous teenager).

The message
from "FarmI" ask@itshall be given contains these words:
"Robert (Plymouth)" wrote in

Surely you want Berberis, I forget the name but the orange flowered
one is
razor sharp. I expect Nick will come back with the name

I bought a berberis to plant under my grandson's bedroom window. I thought
it would stop anyone trying to get in (in the case of burglars) or out (for
when the grandson becomes a mutinous teenager).

Don't bank on the latter!

When I was at bawdy school during my tenth year there was a holly hedge
under our dormitory window. The challenge was to leap out of the window
and crash into it, on one's back, in pyjamas only.

Sometimes there was a regular rotation of plummeting brats, and same,
unplummeting up the adjacent drainpipe.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message

from tonyjeffs contains these words:
On 12 Sep, 16:11, Jennifer Sparkes wrote:
The message

from tonyjeffs contains these words:

Our house is on a corner. At the side of the garden is a privit hedge,
and at the end is a stone wall. *The corner where the two meet is very
vulnerable to burglars, and there've recently been 3 in the street.
So... we need either barbed wire (joking) or a nice thorny bush to
make that access route less attractive.

How about Poncirus trifoliata? The scent of the flowers is lovely
and it can become quite vicious ...

Aha!
We have some of that struggling to grow in another part of the hedge.
I didn't know what it was. And I didn't know it had a smell! I'll
transplant it to the corner.

Where it is, it has always been small, about 18". Perhaps smothered by
the privit. Can it grow to 7"

Only if you prune 5" off it...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig