I seem to have painted myself in a corner here. I've got a small bundle of burial grade camera wires running 4" deep in the ground, no conduit (except the short vertical run from out of the house to just below grade.) My concern lies in the first 2' -flower bed- where the wires the have to pass through right out of the house. There are no flowers there now, but there is always that chance someone will want to stick a shovel in there.

Is there maybe a wrap around product that protects, similar to the stuff we have seen that makes the wires look pretty?

Flame away for not putting conduit in the flower bed, or the whole yard for that matter.

Yeah, you've got troubles.

If you can pull the wires out of the house, I'd do exactly that, then dig up that first bit of wires and retro a conduit around it.

If you can't pull the wires out of the house, I'd put a terminal box on the wall before the wires go down. At that point, pull the wires up and fit a conduit around them.

In future, don't ever put them less than about ten inches, and that's for retrofit. If against a wall, maybe six or eight inches.

Best of luck, really. 4" is way too shallow.

I agree with Ernie. 

The best thing to do is pull the wires back are reinstall in conduit. 
Just consider this a lesson learned and do the job right. 

Pray!! 

Split the properly sized conduit right down the middle with a band saw. Put it around the wires and wrap with tape to hold together. It won't be pretty or right but, it will keep a shovel from killing your wires.

Thanks for the advice. It actually won't be too bad to pull them back from the inside of the house. It will just take a couple of hours. Lesson learned.

Here was the solution I ended up with. This plastic tubing was tough as nails. I put it on a stump and was unable to damage it with cutting blows from the shovel on the right. Yet I was able to dissect it on one side with a razor without cutting myself. Whole deal took 10 minutes.

Also, I was trying to avoid the roots and had to fish under the narrow part of the sidewalk....so either way I was headed for a flexible solution. Not to make excuses though, for now I'll pray and do it right yet totally overkill next time around.

Nice save.

You can buy split conduit, ask at the electrical distributor. Flex or rigid.

No ER visit risk. ;)

Glad it worked out well.

Is that going to end up at least a bit underground? UV damages tie wraps, so out of the light is better. We usually don't notice UV damage because nobody touches the ties once they become brittle, but if they're brittle in the garden they'll break more easily.

That NMT is fairly rigid; I doubt the failure of the zip ties will cause any issues.

I used the same NMT for my 110v landscape lights, above ground, so the string trimmers won't cut them.

But that's a good point - most zip ties aren't designed for outdoor use.

It doesn't damage the tie wraps that are UV rated (which are usually black in color).

[Link: actfs.com]

+1
I love decreased medical bills. :)