Vicious Plants Can Add to Home Security
As we’ve discussed many times, home security is very important. It’s crucial to protect what you’ve earned… not to mention your most valuable possession: your family.
This usually means upgrading locks for your doors, making sure windows can’t open from the outside and establishing a variety of home protection elements on your property.
I don’t think I’ve ever recommended plants for protection, other than perhaps some hedges that might limit the number of openings leading up to your house.
But now I’m going to after learning about some serious plants that can inflict lots of damage to anyone trying to scale them to get at your home.
Some of these things are downright dangerous, including the ones that look so beautiful and serene from a distance. In fact, it’s like you’re growing barbed wire outside your house.
You definitely want to keep kids and animals away from them, but if a home invader wants to tangle with these plants, well, I’d like to witness that.
Among these ferocious plants, in case you want to check out some of them, are the following seven:
- Pyracantha. This one grows almost as wide as it does tall (10 feet) and features plenty of needle-sharp spikes. Don’t let the Firethorn’s pretty (and mildly poisonous) red berries fool you.
- Nyctaginaceae. This one can get you two ways… through its thorny stems and its painful sap. The Bougainvillea deceives you with a colorful flower, then inflicts pain.
- Rosaceae. This is like a rose on steroids. It grows very quickly and can reach five feet high. The Blackberry’s thorns are more accurately described as spikes.
- Gleditsia. You probably won’t live to see this Honey Locust plant reach its potential (60 to 90 feet tall), but you’ll definitely observe its lengthy and thick daggers (also known as thorns).
- Fabaceae. Curved – and very sharp – prickles adorn the branches of this Acacia plant. If a bad guy’s clothes get snagged on them, he might have a tough time escaping.
- Solanum. There’s a reason this Porcupine Tomato’s nickname is “devil’s thorn.” Each leaf contains a bunch of sharp spines, and if someone ingests its toxic alkaloid, they can get sick or die.
- Mahonia. Ah, what pretty green leaves the Oregon Grape plant has… ouch! Spines on the ends of these deceptively docile and waxy leaves can catch someone unawares and rip through leather.
Think about making one or more of these plants part of your home defense plan. A home invader is likely to call 9-1-1 before you do.
I have a teenage son that showed me, years ago, that I needed to have something that would prevent him and any intruder from getting on top of my roof. I had a wall that separated the front yard from the backyard, but it was flushed with the corner of the house. All you had to do was get on the wall then jump climb up on the roof.
So I taught my son a valuable lesson. I planted a rose bush where the wall and house meet. At the other end of the wall, I had a lemon tree growing. In the middle of the wall I have blackberries growing. Each and every plant has thorns and will eat you alive. I let the rose bush grow big and tall, as well as the lemon tree. The Blackberry bush, well once a year I cut it back to a reasonable and manageable state.
My son and his friends found out the hard way that they are not to be on my roof the hard way. Believe you me when I say that I couldn’t stop laughing at their cuts and scrapes and torn cloths as they cried about trying to get on my roof.
I never had to worry about easy access to my roof again.
All of those plants probably will work, but here in southern arizona we also have cactus. Cholla cactus other wise known as “jumping cactus” would work really well. Prickly pear als is another one, plus the fruit from certain ones you can use as food or juice. Plus there are other plants hete in arizona that would work really also.
You’ve got that right, Karl. I don’t think I’d like to tangle with a cactus.
Oregon Grape grows wild around here in the Pacific Northwest. It does have spikey-leaves but thick clothing will protect from its bite. One interesting thing about this plant is the bright blue berries that grow in clumps; not only are they delicious but they’re nutritious too! Packed with Vitamin C! The plant enjoys the shady areas along the edges of Conifer trees and it grows well amongst Salaal which is a dense underbrush thats very hardy. The There’s a variety called the ‘Tall’ Oregon grape that reaches over 5 feet tall but its harder to grow.