....to plant this spring in a spot where disgusting dog owners like to stop their filthy beasts on my property. Shrub must be capable of inflicting enough damage to send the dog to the vet. I'm thinking of barberry. Open to suggestions for other shrub options. The planting spot receives sun for about 2/3 of the day, and will be buried in snow for 3 months out of the year.
Shame about the snow. I was going to recommend several large variegated Agave but I don't know if they'll handle snow for 3 months. How about barbed wire on some bamboo poles?
Barbed wire might appear to have been installed with the goal of intentionally injuring the dogs.
I don't know where this idea came from...
A small battery operated fan attached to a motion sensor that is attached to a small contraption of cheyenne and black pepper. If the spritz doesn't shoot up too high, I'm thinking along the lines that ONLY the dog will get whiff of it and thus if it's hidden well enough, people won't be apt to steal it.
Or even better yet, get some oil of mating for dogs and put it on something off your property where you can get odd pictures of dogs and neighbors... if there's a remote controlled spritzing device you can spritz the legs of the neighbors...
Hmm. I bet such an item would sell and could be patented.
-- Jim Carlock Post replies to newsgroup.
What about Pyrocantha
Thanks for the tip. Looks like an attractive plant, too.
The dogs aren't deciding where to stop. Mutilate the owners.
I'd think that'd be the best choice. A very pretty "wall" could be grown of mixed shrubbs starting with pyrocantha as about the biggest thing. There are hundreds of varieties of hawthorns, some have three to five inch spikes, most of which would do very well in places with very cold winters & lots of snow. Barberry bushes & rugosa roses are good intermediate-sized impenetrable shrubs, euphorbia crown-of-thorns for something shorter, & vicious groundcovers like some creeping rubra species, or smilex/greenbriar, or dwarf crimson barberry. A natural barrier of spiky plants could be very beautiful, flowery, & winter-berried for year-round color, though one would require enough room in one's yard to steer pretty clear of it while relaxing, & buy some gardening armor come pruning time.
-paghat the ratgirl
Gorse, common hawthorn, or sloe would do it. Also probably some of the hedge roses, or bois d' arc if you prune it into a shrub form.
I'm not sure if honey locust can be grown as a shrub.
Best regards, Bob
Rugosa! I lived with a 20' row of those for as many years and loved them. I keep forgetting.
The spot in question is about 50' from the house, on a street corner. There's a street sign, and the town could, in theory, say they need access to it regularly, but I wasn't planning on consulting with them. Anyway...to narrow the choices a bit: I used to have a monster of a barberry next to my garage. It was 8 feet high and 5 feet wide. If I needed to paint, or clean the gutters, I used to squeeze the barberry into a smaller "form" temporarily by wrapping it in Romex - the wire you find running through the walls of most houses. If the town ever needed to do whatever towns do to street signs (like assign 5 guys at $45 per hour to wax it), I'd need a plant rugged enough to be imprisoned and squeezed like I did with the barberry.
Watch out for gorse, it can become a major pest. It's officially a noxious weed in many places.
Barberry and pyracantha are both good. Pick a fireblight-resistant pyracantha. If minor cruelty to animals doesn't disturb you, birds pigging out and getting drunk on pyracantha berries can be amusing.
(SNIP)
It would have to go to the county IIRC and while I might think it worth it, my lawn hasn't been anointed for quite some time. Right now they are targeting other areas of the general neighborhood.
BTW - go with the rugosas - hardy, pretty, makes the birds happy and the deer don't eat them.
Cheryl
I don't know if it will grow in your area but the nastiest thorns I've ever seen are on hardy orange. Usually grown as a small tree, I've heard of it being used as a hedge. It is a very attractive plant year round with utterly vicious thorns. I believe it's hardy to zone 6. By the way, I still laugh every time I think of that "pistol targets in fur jackets" comment you made a few weeks back.
Keith
I have been toying with the idea of planting some roses, probably rugosa roses, to discourage kids from riding their bikes across my yard. There's nothing quite as nasty as falling into a rose bush! I haven't had good luck with pyrocantha and barberry isn't nasty enough in my opinion.
I'm probably the only person on earth who hasn't seen any of the Harry Potter movies.
My barberry would literally shred the sleeves of a flannel shirt if I dared reach into it. Different variety, maybe. I didn't plant the original one - it came with the house and might've been close to 50 years old.
I guess it depends on the neighborhood. Here, the town judges are the first stop, county courts the second.
Rugosa sounds like a good choice. 2-3 nights a week when I step outside, there are deer 20 feet from the door, and they stand there and stare at me light I have a lot of nerve for invading their driveway. :-)
I'm glad you found that entertaining! Mostly, I get nasty comments from people who think natural law dictates that I like their dogs.
Flowering quince ( Chaenomeles speciosa ). My parents had one of these bastardly plants in front of a bay window that I had to paint several times over the years. Unfortunately, they've sold the house and now I'll never get to trim it with a lawnmower, dig up the roots and salt the earth where it grew.
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