Nice fruiting living fence that keeps intruders away?

[Kapiak]

Is there a good fruiting plant that can keep intruders away?

Our garden is surrounded by a living fence of Gliricidia trees as posts holding 90 cm tall (3 ft) pig fence and topped with barbed wire. It was initially aimed to stop goats from getting inside and eating our plants. It worked perfectly for that purpose.

But now we found out that instead some people jumped over the fence to get some of our garden produces.

Most of our fruit trees are not producing yet, so nothing to steal yet from them, but later on there may be lots of fruits which could also mean a lot more people tempted to jump over and pick our fruits.

A tall wire fence around our garden isn't a workable solution for us, so we are looking into plants as living hedges.

It is half shade along 50 % of the fence line, full shade on 25 % and full sun on 25 %, ultra-tropical wet lowland with a very short and not very distinct dry season.

I was thinking about good varieties of Salacca for the shade + half-shade areas, but not sure how to deal with all of the suckers that I heard would pop up all the time around the mother plants...?

Are there other alternatives, that are both delicious and easily propagated?

[Kapiak]

PS - I do like to share fruits and vegetables from our garden, but that doesn't mean I like to get robbed

[gunnar429]

not sure of the climate there, but prickly pear, raspberries, or thorny citrus come to mind

[cos]

kei apple

[cos]

Kei apple

[SWRancher]

Natal Plum, the thorns are large and very sharp no one will try to climb over it.   

[shaneatwell]

Che (Cudrania tricuspidata) seems possible. Could be intergrown with or grafted on Osage Orange, a one-time popular hedge plant in the U.S.

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/che.html

[Finca La Isla]

There is a vining citrus that could work well but I think that salacca would be the best.  Along the fence line you encourage suckers that develop between the plants or on the outside, especially on male plants.  The row can fill in solid in a few years and nothing is going through there.  Planted at 1m the fence could be credible in 2-3 years.  Planted at 2 m will take a little longer.
I have heard of planting male clones on the fence line and the females inside which sounds pretty clever if you can get the clinal material.
Peter

[simon_grow]

I use citrus, pomegranates because of their thorns. Sugarcane would also work nicely.

Simon

[CGameProgrammer]

Naranjilla is a unique option. It's a shrub that grows to about 8 feet high and has sharp thorns ALL over - even the leaves have thorns on both their top and bottom surfaces. It produces orange fruit said to taste like kiwi. Mine are too young to fruit so this is just what I've read.

Most of the options people suggested (Natal plum, kei apple, pomegranate) are really for drier areas than yours.

Strawberry guava might be considered invasive in your area but it's an extremely dense (though thornless) tree/shrub so that might be effective too.

[Tropicaliste]

In the Philippines, they plant "Damortis" or Manila Tamarind, as hedges between rice paddies or orchards, it keeps the water buffalo and cows from making their way to eat crops. It's covered in thorns that hurt. It makes edible fruit too.

[Kapiak]

Many interesting plants I had never thought of!

Checked up some of them, which seems to be better suited to drier climates. Naranjilla seem better suited to the highlands than the hot lowlands?

That was an interesting idea with male Salaccas lining the fence, and having female salaccas on the inner part. That would be a good solution to have enough male trees and not tempting the people trying to reach the salacca fruits along the fence.

Just tricky to know which is female and which is male when you must grow them from seeds - I doubt I will ever be able to import small plants of Salaccas, only seeds.

The Manila Tamarind was interesting too, will explore that further

We got Cherry guavas but we need thorns. People here aren't hindered by smooth shrubs, as most of them have machetes. Thorns slow them down better

Thanks a lot folks, and keep more ideas coming!! 

[mangomike]

In the tropics I would consider Chinese thorny bamboo ( Bambusa sinospinosa). Propagate readily from cane cuttings, grows rapidly, and makes an impenetrable wall of green that no living thing will get through; the thorny side branches droop to the ground, and are formidable. I think your thieves would try once, and then seek easier targets.

[nullzero]

Many interesting plants I had never thought of!

Checked up some of them, which seems to be better suited to drier climates. Naranjilla seem better suited to the highlands than the hot lowlands?

That was an interesting idea with male Salaccas lining the fence, and having female salaccas on the inner part. That would be a good solution to have enough male trees and not tempting the people trying to reach the salacca fruits along the fence.

Just tricky to know which is female and which is male when you must grow them from seeds - I doubt I will ever be able to import small plants of Salaccas, only seeds.

The Manila Tamarind was interesting too, will explore that further

We got Cherry guavas but we need thorns. People here aren't hindered by smooth shrubs, as most of them have machetes. Thorns slow them down better

Thanks a lot folks, and keep more ideas coming!! 

Naranjilla could work if you used a grafting roostock for Solanum sp. There is a lowland tropic relative Solanum sessiliflorum "Cocona" which should grow better in your climate. If you want something no one is going to cross ever... then you want to plant a bunch of Opuntia monacantha, can eat the fruits as well.

[treefrog]

as a lower level barrier, consider pineapples planted in the understory.  some varieties have formidable thorns along the edges of the leaves.





there are varieties that look good, taste good, and draw blood if you approach without gloves!

[EvilFruit]

Kei Apple, opuntia species, Peruvian apple,etc.

[luc]

Hey guys didn't you notice Kapiak is in New Guinea , he probably has 2,50 meter of rainfall so the only one that will do the job is Salak like Peter suggested , on the other side if somebody wants to get in he'll get in specially if they carry a machete ( just like here in Mexico )

[DurianLover]

Hey guys didn't you notice Kapiak is in New Guinea , he probably has 2,50 meter of rainfall so the only one that will do the job is Salak like Peter suggested , on the other side if somebody wants to get in he'll get in specially if they carry a machete ( just like here in Mexico )

Luc that's my thought exactly. I'm surprised by so responses offering some insignificant shrubs and especially pineapple. Pineapple will definitely have opposite effect. Local aborigines are tough bunch, they will slice through anything. This isn't some suburban backyard. Salak its the only thing that could work. When you see fully grown wall of salaks, you don't even want begin messing around whether you have a machete or a machine gun. Besides it is ideal growing location in humid ultra tropics of PNG.

[nullzero]

Opuntia monacantha will tolerate the water as long as there is heat. Now if your land has no drainage and is a swamp like soil that is a different story, but I am pretty sure Opuntia monacantha will not have issues with less then a week of flooded land.

http://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/120172

Very large and sturdy spines +2" long (very sharp, can be used as sowing needles). Also comes armored with many glochids and it gets larger as well +6ft. If someone tried to chop it with a Machete, it would not work very well. Once you try cutting through a thick pad the knife gets stuck and increasingly hard to cut through the slime and fibers in the pad. Once the plant ages it starts to become a woody thick stem. Very easy to multiply just take a pad and stick partially in the ground.


BTW, not sure what level of invasive nature O. monacantha is in your climate.

[Kapiak]

Luc & DurianLover, you're so right. Many plants that deter Europeans or Americans don't deter the locals here. They're indeed a tough bunch here and don't mind walking through spiny pineapple at all while I myself (being from Europe) don't even want to touch the leaves without a glove... the unfenced pineapple garden are being picked all the time by hungry kids despite the thorns. Kids in my country would just look and drool and ask someone to help them to pick the pineapples, but here the kids just jump into the thorns and pick the fruits as if there were no thorns. 

So what we need is a thorny devil hedge that scares even the locals here despite they're bearing machetes 

- But it should still be manageable for us though so the Salaks don't spread all over the place and deter us as well, haha

Not sure though how we can get material for... 300 metres of fenceline though. Can I propagate salaks fast vegetatively after obtaining seeds of them?

And hey Nullzero - The Opuntia could actually work. We have access to unlimited amounts of gravel from the nearby rocky river to increase our drainage where needed. It is not swampy and excess water drains away within one day. I just need some pads to try out... know where I can get some to try?

[Das Bhut]

dragonfruit spines can cut pretty decent if they're planted thick enough nobody will bother trying to climb the fence

if they chop them up you can just put them in the ground to make more

[CGameProgrammer]

What sort of people are you living near that would so maliciously destroy and/or steal their neighbors' plants?

[bangkok]

What sort of people are you living near that would so maliciously destroy and/or steal their neighbors' plants?

Around harvest time the Thai farmers sleep inbetween their crops. Same kind of people i guess.

[nullzero]

Kapiak,

I had Opuntia monacantha growing about 2 years back. When I had to move, I scrambled to pack things in. I could not take the mother plant with me, thought about taking a pad (but it grew so fast and furious , that I left it behind due to limited room).

[Bush2Beach]

Fast growing cactus is probably your best bet. Kei Apple is an impenetrable hedge of pain but I think it would take a lot of years to have a tall enough fence line of kei apple.