5 Landscape Strategies that Boost Home Security
There’s no such thing as a burglar proof home, but many local police departments will conduct assessments to identify practical ways to increase home security.
This is a valuable service, and it’s interesting that two of the most common recommendations involve targeted landscaping and lighting improvements. Many departments describe this as crime deterrence through environmental design, a strategy that focuses on three key elements: increasing visibility, limiting access and eliminating hiding places.
To accomplish these goals and implement some of the most frequent recommendations, work with your landscaper to:
- Trim bushes, hedges and shrubs. Eliminate hiding spots and increase your line of sight from inside the house, through the landscape and out to the street or property line by having bushes, hedges and shrubs trimmed to a height of three feet or less. Doing this also improves visibility from the street to the house, which acts as a powerful deterrent.
- Trim trees. Have the first seven feet of limbs trimmed from any tree situated near the house to prevent someone from climbing the tree to gain access to the attic or upper stories. If a tall tree obscures the house, consider thinning thick growth to improve visibility from the house to the street and vice versa.
- Plant deterrents. Install prickly, thorny shrubs and bushes under windows and in front of basement windows to discourage would-be burglars. Do the same around the property perimeter to discourage lurkers.
- Install gravel. Have your landscaper install weed barriers and gravel below windows and around foundation plants and flower beds. Footsteps on gravel make a loud crunching noise, which in turn discourages prowlers from scouting near the house, hiding behind plantings or breaking into a window.
- Add lighting. A well-lighted exterior is a significant deterrent to any would-be vandal or intruder. Brighter lights on and near the house provide steady illumination for the adjacent landscape and eliminate shadowed hiding spots. Motion-activated spot and flood lights discourage intruders and deliver the light you need if someone enters your property at night. A three-tiered approach works well in the yard: Have lights installed in trees or on posts to cast broad ambient light above eye level, and use shorter posts and pavement lights to illuminate the grounds and walkways.
These five simple strategies will help improve visibility throughout your landscape, limit access to your home and discourage those who intrude by eliminating potential hiding places. In combination, they make you, your loved ones and your home safer and more secure, an end result well worth the investment.