I was gifted with a Tropicana rose a few years ago, wicked thorns! Only problem, how would one get in to fix it?

I don't know about out-and-out prevention, but it would certainly harden the target, as it were. Make sure that the location will support a healthy rose--full sun, good drainage, etc. If the site is not ideal (too much shade, etc.) roses are not the only shrubs with thorns that might do the trick. Aloes, for example can be quite formidable. Keep in mind, however, that if you ever have to get your a/c serviced, your repair person will not be a happy camper.

Kay

It's happening in Chicago, Indiana ... they can do it in 10 minutes. See the link below for You-tube on how to prevent, using a bolt if you have a cement base that your air unit rests on.

thanks, Kay, for the aloes idea - I'll pass it on to my sister in Florida. Is that the aloe with the medicinal juice inside?

Here is a link that might be useful: How to prevent air unit, using a bolt

Noooooo, Strawberryhill, aloe vera is much too friendly. The ones I have in mind are bigger, a lot bigger, and a lot meaner, too.
I'm thinking about "feed me Seymour" kinds of plants. Here is aloe marlothii, one of many. I would imagine that if you wander over to the cacti and succulents forum, they will have many other suggestions for you.

Kay

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:230596}}

I think roses would work, especially if you made a bush out of John Cabot, or possibly a Rugosa or Banshee and let it sucker big.

Mahonia smells nice, is evergreen (usually) and is prickly like holly. I use the clippings after pruning to put in my garden beds to keep the neighbor cats out.

I was just reflecting on all the shrubs I don't want to happen into and Barberry is thorny and attractive too.

Same with my natal plum!

I have a couple of HT roses right where if I need to service a couple of plumbing clean outs. BUT I put them there thinking if I had a service emergency, those roses will just be getting a pruning and a box over the canes will make it a service friendly area.

Way back in the mid nineties, a lovely lady asked me to bud a rose for her from the Huntington Study Plot at one of the Old Rose Symposiums. I checked out the specific rose and went back to her, asking what I'd done to offend her. She laughed and assured me I'd not offended her then asked why I'd thought she had. Waldtraut Nielsen was the rose she wanted budded and it was the absolutely most wickedly prickly rose in that plot. Asking anyone to bud it definitely seemed like being asked to deliberately injure yourself. It should be cold hard enough for that purpose, too. She'd asked for the rose as she wished to use it as the security plant outside her beautiful, 16 year old daughter's bedroom window. With Waldtraut outside that window, NO ONE would try to get in and in an emergency, NO ONE would try to get out out of it! Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Waldtraut Nielsen

Bolt or chain down the unit, or encase it in a metal cage. You have to be able to get to it if it needs repairs or replacement, and the units need air circulation around them to work properly.

You just want it difficult enough so that the thieves go on to the next house where it will be easier. Thieves look for the easiest target.

Mine is already bolted down. It's stealing copper wire, $100 worth, inside that wreck any $$$ air unit. The video link above showed they use a power-drill, get the top off, and rip-off copper wires in less than 10 minutes.

Thank you, Kippy, for the idea of sparse-leggy-Hybrid-tea that allow air-circulation. I'm thinking of skinny & tall Frederic Mistral or Apricot nectar for that partial-shade spot. My air unit hasn't been serviced for the past 12 years... I like Kippy's idea of pruning HT's, and put a carton over them, in case of service.

My unit is a bit harder to get the top off, since I bought a tall unit ... they would need a ladder to get inside ... so a tall, sparse, and thorny rose would be great to get into the ladder's way.

Our air conditioners never looked so good!

I am putting Kordes shrubs on a back wall where I want to prevent anyone from climbing over. I used to get a neighbors cat coming into my yard to fight with my kitties but Autumn Damask planted where he liked to come over stopped that. It prospers in 1/2 day sun and has A+ fragrance.

I would select a rose you'd be willing to lose if need be, not something precious, beloved, and rare.

When the time comes that the unit must be serviced, you will need be willing to cut the rose down to allow access for the workers. It is common courtesy at least, and good sense as well. You certainly do not want them to be injured on your property because of a condition you created.

Not sure what I'd plant up here. But when in the Deep South, I had a pretty long list of people-stoppers. In the Deep South, you need those more than anywhere else, except around Detroit and Chicago, and in the part of Aztlan once known as the State of California.

Number one on the list would be Cherokee Rose (Rosa Laevigata). Beautiful, evergreen plant. Leaves so glossy they actually SPARKLE in clear sun. Fantastically fast growth, even on unamended clay soils. Traffic-stopping blooms at the beginning of the season, and big maroon hips. AND THE THORNS WILL RIP THE FLESH (and clothing, and the foam rubber padding on your mower...).

Next, is the dreaded Rosa Bracteata. Again, beautiful leaves... evergreen, remontant... and hooked thorns ideal for ripping copper-stealing meth addicts to shreds.

Bracteata had a baby with a Tea Rose. The offspring of that union is the lovely Mermaid. Such a sweet little yellow rose! An architect in our old town (Madison, Mississippi) had a Mermaid plant which would routinely ensnare the family's Whippets. They'd hear desperate screams from the doggies, and it would take husband AND wife working together to free the Whippet. (What a wonderful evolutionary advantage! A decaying animal would mean importation of much nitrogen into the soil.)

Yes! You might actually ensnare a robber! And he'd leave blood samples which you could send off for DNA matching, and get him busted for various rapes and murders he's committed along life's way.

Recently, Paul Barden and Ralph Moore have done a lot of work with Bracteata, and some of their creations sport the deadly hooked thorns for which the species is noted. Just googling 'Bracteata Hybrid' should get you started. But I'm sure they're gentle souls who did not grow up in combat zones, as did I. Only those of us who have experienced the throbbing vibrance which comes from living in an 'enriched' region understand the need for defensive plantings. You could inquire about unreleased roses they're testing. Just don't tell them why you need the thorns.

You could build a chainlink cage around the condenser(s), with a lockable gate, then let the sweet, innocent roses cloak the cage, a la Sleeping Beauty . Access would be a matter of trimming the rose away from the gate.

When I worked at the nursery in Pacific Palisades, we had a wrought iron fence which encircled the front around the street corner on Sunset Blvd. at Liones. There was a good set back to permit foot traffic and reduce the potential of the fence being hit by people careening down hill on the curve on Sunset. There were large eucalyptus trees which provided some cover, as well as the other landscaping and the nursery sign. Preventing people from hopping that fence became an issue...UNTIL two Mermaid plants were installed and trained along it. Within two years, they had generated inch and a half thick canes which we wove through the tops of the wrought iron. That rose is definitely living barbed wire. Due to the exposure, lack of any real direct sun, terrible humidity and other constant moisture, there was occasional mildew, but those Mermaids exploded and QUICKLY paved that fence. No more issues with anyone coming over THAT fence, and they flowered all year long. Bracteata can sucker, Mermaid doesn't. Laevigata is beautiful, but it's predominantly spring flowering. Mermaid, in anything resembling a benign climate, is continuous. Kim

Thank you, plan9 for your kind words and great info. Thank you, rosefolly and kittymoonbeam, I'm going check out your Autumn Damask rose.

My sister wrote to me from Port Charlotte, FL: "The house I bought, the air conditioner was stolen, the thief sold it for about $50, for the copper inside the unit. I replaced the ac, it costs me $9,100. The stealing is very bad, all over FL, it doesn't matter where your house locate. Finally it decreased when the state passed the law, make the buyer check for seller's ID. I bought my ac with locked cage....The former owner of my house, she installed a new hurricane system, the next day, it was stolen. ...One side the house worth $400,000, the other side $700,000 (today market), my house is the cheapest in my side of the street."

It doesn't matter how well-off the neighborhood is, drug addicts steal copper from AC units of churches, nursery, doctors' offices, street lights' posts .. even climb up to get AC on roof-tops.

Copper theft is rampant all over, not just in a/c units. The news here frequently reports its theft and occasionally the electrocution of some idiot who touched the wrong thing in their theft efforts. Even without the economic and job issues, there will always be those who are more inclined to "harvest" recyclable materials like that instead of more traditional employment. Kim

In agreement with the Bracteata and Laevigata recommendations.

To them, I would add the Hybrid Tea Elina, which has painfully sharp thorns that penetrate heavy leather gloves; and the bush looks so healthy that it could be classified as a stealth warriour.

Hi Kim: you are right about that. Foreclosured homes are hardest hit, thieves pull off copper pipes, causing plumbing damages. L ast summer there were more than a dozen AC units got broken into, only 15 minutes from me. They may get to my place this summer, so I'm getting ready in advance.

No place is safe, my sister in CT lives in a big-land and lowest crime. She left some canned foods and clothes inside her car ... she meant to donate that to church. They stole it the next day. The corner lot gets the most hit.

No neighborhood is immune to breaking and entering, whether it's to steal copper, or just to steal. A good friend has been battling colon cancer for four years now. My sister works for him, helping him with appointments, etc., as her husband went through it several years ago and finally succumbed to it nearly five years ago. Last week, she took him to his chemo appointment. They returned to the police at his home. The gardener arrived and found the front doors had been opened via crow bar and called the cops. Fortunately, he's not the kind to immediately rush out to buy the latest of anything, so though his electronics WERE "state of the art" when purchased, they're all too large, too heavy and too old to be attractive to thieves. What they got was sentimentally valuable but of little monetary value. They also got his phone, which he was considering replacing and pretty much wrecked the front doors, which he was also considering replacing. But, the recent PET scan showed all tumors had disappeared (for the second time), and his total loss is likely to be less than his homeowner's insurance deductible, so he considers it a "good day". This is an upscale neighborhood where B/E wasn't an issue until recently. One neighbor has been hit three times in as many months! If someone REALLY wants in, there isn't a lot you can do to keep them OUT. Kim

"If someone REALLY wants in, there isn't a lot you can do to keep them OUT. Kim"

*** That's the truth.
Our little Lane used to be so anonymous, folks who'd spent their lives in this city didn't realize it was here.

Then, some homes changed hands -- one new owner bringing in every jack-leg contractor around; And the son of the woman at the end of the Lane tried to kill his mother, began doing drugs and (we're pretty sure) dealing. Now, I think our little Lane is far too well-known to the wrong people. A neighbor had his Garmin device stolen, out of his pickup, parked on the street.

It would be impossible to make this house inaccessible, and our three Dalmatians certainly wouldn't bite.

I know things are very different for many of you, but we long ago decided not to worry about it over much.

If I wanted to keep out evil-doers, I'd likely go for Mermaid. My concern would be that mentioned above: Lack of access for repair.

Jeri

My dad used to say "we did not have to worry about thieves, once they broke in they would leave a donation."

I worry some now that the yard and out side of the house look fixed up that some one might think we have something worth stealing at moms house. Other than eggs and fruit, I can't see someone running down the street with a 20 year old 19" tv.

I more worry about people scaring mom, thus the thorny roses at the favorite fence jumping locations.

Our "clean out" roses were of the $6 specials at HD. I figured I am spending way more than that an hour on a repair person so if I have a problem, I have loppers!

I guess we were lucky with mom. My sister and I assured her we would never send anyone to her for anything. If something was required, one or the other of us would be there to explain it to her, so if anyone else she didn't know well approached her with anything, just say no, 'talk to my child'. There comes a time when the instructions she gave you as a child become appropriate for you to give them. It worked perfectly (thank Heavens!) Kim

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, people are stealing the wiring out of street lights and the freeway metering lights. It makes streets too dark to be safe, and plays havoc with the morning and evening commute since now the cars just barge onto the freeway and are not spaced out. And then, because all the budgets are already maxed out, and staff reduced, it takes months for the government to FIND OUT about the light outages, let alone replace them. Very aggravating!

Kippy has a good point, those cheap Hybrid teas come in handy to protect windows from being climbed in. God must had created roses with thorns and wafting fragrance to place right by window sills.

Our bedrooms are upstairs ... I always sleep with the windows opened, even with freezing zone 5a winter for fresh air. If our bedrooms are downstairs, I would plant thorny roses right below the window level.

Another trick is to leave the radio on LOUD, before going out. It costs only $4 of electricity if you leave it on all year.

don't forget about the good old board of wood with nails pointed upwards on the ground

anntn6b, I looked up Elina, and am impressed! HelpMeFind says nothing but good things about her. Does she keep her leaves for you? Looks like a wonderful hedge, if that's so.

Trifoliate orange. People used to plant it in back yards in Philadelphia.

According to wikipedia:
The cultivar "Flying Dragon" is dwarfed in size and has highly twisted, contorted stems. It makes an excellent barrier hedge due to its density and thorns. Such a hedge had been grown for over 50 years at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

I don't wholeheartedly recommend it, though. Such things are more likely to harm people who live there rather than intruders.

Here is a link that might be useful: Poncirus trifoliata

I love this forum, I get enough education to be a botanist ... Thank you, Monarda for info about Poncirus Trifoliata.

Wikipedia wrote: "The fruits of Poncirus trifoliata are widely used in Oriental medicine as a remedy for allergic inflammation.[2] Poncirus trifoliata extracts have been shown to possess in vitro anti-allergic, antitumor,[5][6] anti-inflammatory and antiviral activities.[7] Poncirus trifoliata extract could possess a wide range of beneficial activities for neurodegenerative disorders.[8] A water extract, taken for 10 weeks, suppressed weight gain in rats.[9

..... Suppress weight gain? It's worth it !!

Yes indeed the densely growing Poncirus trifoliata 'Flying Dragon' would deter invaders with thorns 1 1/2" long. The only thing is it may not be hardy to zone 5. I have it here at about 6-7'x the same but I think that this is as far north as it grows. There is no cold hardiness difference between this and the species.

Cath