Nikki Sellers, Head of Home Insurance at esure.com, said: "With light evenings and pleasant summertime temperatures, many of us will be spending more time in the garden than inside our homes. So it's not surprising that as a nation we spent over £3.7bn this year on our backyards. But this investment needs protecting. Garden equipment, toys and bikes left out overnight are easy targets for opportunistic thieves. We should all get in the habit of locking up items in the house and making our gardens as secure as possible."

To keep prized possessions away from opportunistic thieves, esure.com recommends that homeowners take these simple steps to secure their gardens this summer:

Lock up your valuables.

Over a third of homeowners (37%) have added an outbuilding - such as a shed or garage - to their property in the last five years and in the last 12 months alone over 3.62 million new outbuildings, including 2.9 million sheds, have sprung up across the UK. Therefore, there is little excuse for people not to lock away garden valuables overnight - out of sight from burglars looking for easy pickings. High value items should be stowed away indoors.

Illuminate and deter.

Install security lights with movement sensors to startle any unwelcome garden visitors.

Sources:

ICM Research interviewed a random selection of 1010 adults aged 18+, by telephone between the 10th and 13th of June 2005.

* ICM research (showing the amount people spent on their garden in the last 12 months) with figures from the Office of the Department of the Deputy Prime Minister (www.statistics.gov) for number of households in Great Britain in 2001 (24.14 million), adjusted to account for households without gardens (20.18 million).