Barberries add security

By Paul Schnare

I was making a deposit at a local bank this morning and saw that they had a lot of barberries (very prickly bushes) around the windows of the drive through teller portion of the bank. I don't think any criminals would try to get through the bank via those windows because of the prickly bushes. This made me think of an issue that developed at a bank in downtown Columbia, Missouri over 40 years ago.

I had just gotten involved in landscaping while living in Columbia. I was a partner with a local businessman at the time. We were customers of a locally owned bank that had a facility on the main street going east and west in the downtown area. There were several local pubs in the vicinity of the bank.

The bank asked me to do some landscaping around the facility, which I did. We planted flowers, yews, and some deciduous viburnums. The facility looked great after the work we did. I was really proud of the results, and so were the bank stockholders.

Then one Saturday afternoon the Mizzou Tiger Football team played their arch rival, Oklahoma. It was a close game, but in the last few seconds of the game, the Tigers scored a TD and all of the fans went ballistic. What a celebration we had in the stadium.

Thorns protrude from a barberry bush Thursday at Montgomery Bank in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

On Monday morning after the celebrated win, I got a frantic call from the management of the bank we had landscaped. All of the shrubs had been ripped out of the ground during the "celebration" on Saturday night by the celebrating fans who just had a little too much to drink that night. We needed to do something fast.

After scratching my head I realized that there were some shrubs that would not be pulled up out of the landscape in the event of another Tiger football team win in Columbia--barberries. With that in mind we planted barberries in the landscape beds. The bank never lost another shrub out of their landscape no matter how many times the Tigers won a football game--and the barberries complemented the looks of the bank building.

A few months later a homeowner with small children asked me to do some landscaping around their home. They were concerned about having the landscape embellish the home, but they also had small children. They wanted to make sure that their kids were safe at night because of the outside window of their bedroom.

After the experience at the bank, I realized that planting prickly shrubs around those windows would certainly deter marauders from trying to enter the home, and it would also deter the children living at the home from trying to pull a prank and duck out of the house at night. So we included barberries around those windows as part of the landscape. The barberries looked great and Mom and Dad felt that their kids would be protected.

If you are concerned about criminals entering your home you might consider planting barberries, roses, or any other prickly plant closely around those windows. I think you may sleep a little better at night.