Keith Woods tells Jenna Towler how you can prevent crime in your home by planting the right bushes and creating the right garden design.

WHEN Keith Woods's 80-year-old grandfather was punched in the face on his own doorstep, nobody could see what was going on the hedges in front of his house were too high.

"People walked by, he had no help because they couldn't see what was happening. It all happened just outside his own front door," Keith explained.

Keith, who has lived in Denham, Bucks, all his life, used this upsetting personal experience to develop his ideas on how thoughtful design and even the plants in your garden can help protect your home from burglary and make you feel safer.

Keith, uses gardens, plants and lighting to deter potential burglars from even thinking about breaking in.

He says even the smallest of adjustments, such as having flower beds and bushes directly outside your windows, using bushes with spiky foliage, having lower hedges and low level lighting will deter intruders.

Keith has been a landscape gardener for nine years and has a degree in the subject, he even wrote his dissertation on landscaping as a crime prevention method even before his grandfather was attacked.

His new business, Environmental Safety Solutions, is an off-shoot of his successful landscaping company, and he now uses his knowledge of gardening as an usual method of crime prevention.

Keith says: "While locks and alarms are valuable, people can help protect themselves from burglars by using the natural resources around them."

He added: "Burglars and housebreakers have a certain criteria when choosing their targets.

"Their objective is to get in and out of a property as quickly as possible, without being seen either inside the house or in the grounds of a house.Offices with flower beds or bushes immediately outside a window are off putting to intruders as they present an obstacle to getting in.

"In the same way, a house which has tall trees surrounding it and obscuring the view in will be more attractive to an intruder, as they can get in and out without being seen. Burglars are far less inclined to climb over spiky bushes."

Keith's business has been flourishing since re-designing his grandparents' garden after the violent attack which spurred him into action to start his new company. He has used his crime prevention gardening on four properties in Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross, Bucks.

Keith says he is in the business of making people feel safer in their homes.

"People should be made to feel safer if someone is coming back from work late at night and the area is not well lit it can be quite frightening, especially for a woman.

"I would take a much longer route home where it is well lit."

Keith firmly believes that by taking care to think about the design of your garden or grounds you can help deter intruders and burglars, and ensure that your environment is still a place to relax and enjoy.

He says: "I want to make people feel as safe as they can in their own homes."