Barrier Planting for security

[skipintro]

The road is scheduled to be widened in front of a 20 acre parcel I'm developing. I'd like to plant a natural thorny barrier that would be nicer looking than a fence and could stop a car. Any ideas for shrubs or small fast-growing trees that would make a good security hedgerow in Central Florida? Preferably something without a lot of messy fruit, too.

[Doug Kanter]

I don't know about stopping a car, but barberry will put most people or animals in a world of hurt, or maybe the emergency room. You'll need heavy duty clothing and leather gloves to trim them once or twice a year.

[Newt]

Hi Skip,

I'm thinking a shrub rose would work and the suckering canes migh possibly hold back a car if it wasn't going to fast. Look for one tha reblooms for a long season of interest and that is tall or medium tall The old fashioned ones are more carefree and disease and pes resistant. I'm thinking that your site is full sun. You will need t know your plant hardiness zone, which I suspect is 9. Here's a zi code zone finder.

's some ideas. Carefree Delight think about China roses. They rebloom (remondant) and ar carefree. Some that should fit your needs are Old Blush, Archduk Charles and Cramoisi Superieur.

-- Newt

[David J Bockman]

MACLURA POMIFERA, aka Osage-orange, also called Hedge-apple and "bois d'arc".

This shrub was the original 'barbed wire fence'. In old vernacular, a good Osage Orange hedgerow was 'horse-high, bull-strong, and hog-tight'. Quite literally a properly grown Osage barrier could stop fenced in livestock.

Yes, the females do produce those bizarre softball sized fruits, however they're prized by various wildlife and humans have uses for them as well.

[Cindy]

bougainvillea

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Talk about timing! Not a month after I posted that question about car-stopping hedgerows, did a car come crashing through my hedges at my northern CA home. The intoxicated driver was being chased by the police when he decided to turn onto my front lawn.

this photo, the car on the left is sitting in the middle of my lawn, after going through some shrubs planted in the corner of the property. He came to rest at a birch tree:

he is after backing up a foot or so. You can see the plate got bent when he hit the tree.)

About 18" of bark, 50% around the poor tree got dislodgled:

we're going to try to plant something with more car-stopping power in the corner here (though it was probably a freak accident because this is a quiet, residential street in a very safe community. And maybe we'll help the bushes out with an iron post or concrete barrier, hidden inside the plantings.

The arborist said my tree may not make it. It'll take a year or so to know for sure...

[Richard Cline]

You should be cautious about putting a steel post in the middle of your plantings. It is my understanding that you could be liable for injuries resulting from a collision with the post. You should try to collect on the damage to your vegetation and use the money to hire a landscape gardener. .

Dick

[lgb]

The inmates are running the asylum!