Your front yard landscape has the potential to add to your home security. If you do it correctly. Right now you may feel safe – but are you?

Landscaping for security, and beauty, and to please a HOA – it takes some consideration.

Cover image above – A low-water landscape that is pretty and includes the security features covered in this article.

Landscaping is Not Just Plunking in Some Plants

As I drive around town, I notice home landscapes. Sometimes I see beautiful plants, sometimes I see lovely landscapes, and sometimes I see things that make me shake my head and wonder “what they were thinking?!” (All this noticing might be why my Honey prefers to be the driver, not the drivee.)

security through landscaping with repellant plants — Hard to walk on this patch of sidewalk due to the large spiny agaves.

I see any number of cases where people thought they were enhancing their home security with their landscaping – when in fact they were doing the exact opposite. Two main things that people do wrong all the time, and I will cover both.

Why Not Security Cameras?

I’m not against security cameras. There are even some good ones out there. But security camera salespeople want you to think that their security cameras are the solution, I beg to differ.

bars for security but left undone — Install security doors and bars on the windows – and yet leave the security door wide open. Security bars just tells the neblecks that you have something to protect.

Not cameras alone. Cameras and the right kind of landscaping landscaping combined are the solution. A quick perusal of the interweb will show anyone ample videos of neblecks thwarting security cameras.

Those Dang Neblecks

Nebleck is not a typo, it’s an amalgamation word based in Yiddish, or maybe Russian, and comes from an old neighbor of mine that didn’t like to wear her false teeth. One day in conversation she called some neighborhood hooligans a word I didn’t quite catch. I repeated back what I thought I heard, and she thought it was hilarious.

She used “nebleck” ever after. Used it for the neighbor who would not pick up after walking the dog, and for the kids who egged her car. It’s a handy word eschewing all gender, race, religion, age, and even pronouns. Think of it as a human who is a worthless piece of pond scum.

security with a company — Home security companies offer these signs to note that your home is protected. Sadly most neblecks can be in, grab the loot, and be gone before any outside agency can respond.

Landscaping for Security – Two Things

Your secure landscape needs two key components.
One – visibility and
Two – plants that repel.

Plants that Repel

One of the worst landscapes I saw was a home whose front yard was an ocean of grey gravel with a few huge, very spiny, agaves. The whole feeling was that of a stark, barren, forbidding, place, almost like a prison ground. Not a happy place.

But worst of all, they had planted those giant agaves right up against the side of the home, underneath each (barred) window.

security through landscaping shrubs done incorrectly — Sea of gravel. Often done for “security” but it lacks beauty. Those poor shrubs are going to bake in the reflected heat off the rocks.

Do you know why this would be a problem? Indeed, no one is going to climb into the home through that massive thorny barrier and barred window. BUT. But no one could climb out of the window either – say in case of fire. So safe from outside danger perhaps, but not safe from danger coming from inside the home.

Visibility

A picture is worth a thousand words. This home is so hidden that if a thief was climbing in a window, or even breaking in the front door, no passing neighbor would be able to tell.

Visibility is Key

The weakest point to all home security are the doors. Front door, garage door, patio door. A front door can be incredibly easy to kick in, or break into with a bump key. Neblecks are lazy, they are not going to climb in windows when they open the front door with a single blow from a sledge hammer. By the time neighbors ask each other, “Did you hear something?” they are inside helping themselves to whatever they can grab.

It may not take a sledge hammer. Most sliding glass patio doors can be opened with a butter knife (kitchen knife for Millennials reading this). And you don’t want to know how easy it is to open some garage doors.

Close to 90 percent of all neblecks enter the target home through the front door. Front doors need to be visible from the street.

security through landscaping done correctly — Landscaping should be pleasing and security conscious. Image of a home for sale on TARLMLS in 2019.

You Can Plant for Security

Good security plantings can happen – but some rational thought needs to go into the entire process. Mere plunking of spiny things is not the sole solution. Start with the critical concept of visibility. Factor in safety. Then you can add some repelling plants as well. But let’s make it all looks nice while we are at it.

Instead plant the yard with a few tall accent plants. Accents like open ocotillos, slender saguaros, or tall trees with lower branches limbed up. Then use short hedges, low perennials, short shrubs, and groundcovers to complete the landscape.

Plant With Low-Water Principles in Mind

Remember xeriscape (low water landscape) principles. Your oasis zone is close to the home where roof runoff will water it. That said, termites love high moisture right at the foundations of your home. It is now considered better to plant low water foundation plants and slope your land into swales in the middle of the yard.

security through landscaping shrubs done correctly — Shrubs are planted in a swale in the center of the yard, not up against the home itself, inviting termites.

Use foundation plantings that are dense, bushy, distasteful to termites and hard for burglars to stand in or fight their way through. The candellia (Euphorbia antisyphilitica) is an excellent plant for this, as is hesperaloe (Hesperaloe parviflora). Even rosemary and some of those drought tolerant Greek plants discussed earlier would work.

In general, place plants that will not need additional water near your foundations. This helps make your home less attractive to termites. (Those six legged neblecks!)

In your design, xeriscape principles have the lower water using plants at the outer edges of the yard. This is where you can put the really spiny plants. Just think things through before you plant. With proper planning, you can grow a secure landscape that also allows you to use it safely – and enjoy it.

Landscape for Lovely and Security

Our homes are said to be our castle. Most people want to be safe and secure inside their castle. Not just feel safe and secure – but actually be safe. Meanwhile – don’t we want a place we can be proud of? Our castles should look nice!

hesperaloe with pink flowers — Hesperaloe, is a very low water plant that produces hummingbird blooms and seldom needs any care at all.

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Planting for Security