Hints & Tips

Garden Lighting

Garden lighting is important for security at night. Halogen floodlights with a passive infrared sensor provide good protection against garden theft. When deciding on the best place to position your garden lighting, you should consider:

• Beams should be kept clear from Neighbours' gardens and roads
• Fitting lighting at main garden access points and in front of outside buildings, such as sheds
• For smaller gardens, bulkhead style fittings with sensors or a switch to operate should be fine.

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Hedges, Boundaries and Fences

Walls, gates, fences, hedges and boundaries can help prevent theft of your valuable garden contents:

• As a deterrent in front gardens, maintain a clear view of the front door
• Place sharp and defensive plants where thieves may be able to enter the garden, around sheds and valuable garden contents
• Choose spiky boundary hedges such as Holly or Hawthorn
• Trellis can be added in rear gardens to make scaling boundaries difficult: It is generally too flimsy to take the weight of an average-sized person and when placed at over 50cms in height, should deter opportunists too
• Ensure that your fence has no features to make it easy to climb
• Gates should be sturdy and as high as the boundary surrounding it. If the gate is metal, ensure there are no bars on it that are at a good height for climbing

You can also help to protect your property against garden loss with Home insurance from Castle Cover. Our Garden Cover protects against cost or damage to walls, gates, fences, hedges, patios, lawns, trees, shrubs, plants, ponds and trellis.

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Driveways and Garden Paths

Paths and drives can act as a valuable early warning system of a thief approaching your property.

• Use gravel as an early warning that somebody is in your garden and approaching the house; it is simple, effective and noisy
• Make it impossible for your house to be reached without crossing a stretch of garden, path or driveway.

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Garages and Sheds

Garages and sheds are usually a haven for expensive tools, bikes and lawn mowers. You can make sure that you have home insurance to cover valuable items with Castle Cover and also take steps to secure your outside buildings:

• Ensure that your shed or garage is sturdy-looking and tough to enter
• Screws should not be returnable in hinges, handles or latches
• Fit a minimum of two bolts and one padlock and space them consistently on the shed or garage door
• Make sure that locks are fitted to windows
• For the most expensive garden contents such as lawn mowers and electric tools, use wall anchors on the inside of your garage or shed
• Alarm your shed or extend the house alarm to cover all of the outside buildings
• Do not leave tools outside. These can be used to force entry into your property or steal plants

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Ornaments, Tubs and Plants

Garden plants, tubs and ornaments are usually among the easiest and most frequent garden contents to be lifted by thieves. You can however make it more difficult for opportunists:

• Shield the most valuable plants and containers from roadside view
• Benches, pots and statues can be secured with land or permanent anchors and fitted with a chain and padlock
• For heavy items that will not blow over in the wind, consider movement sensors that make a loud noise when stirred
• Remove labels from newly bought pots and plants
• If you have hanging baskets, purchase only integral and secured baskets and padlock them to a strong bracket once outside

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