No idea, is this one of those strange ideas from Chelsea?

Perhaps they have installed an electric dog fence to keep it out of the bed. Another possibility is to eliminate a slug problem. It works this way, bury the cable, energize it ,step on it and electrocute yourself ...dead gardeners never have a slug problem.

It sounds dangerous to me :( You could slice through it when planting something, and never plant anything again !

Heating cables? That doesn't sound practical outside of a greenhouse, though. Low voltage lighting system, sloppily done? Hmmm....

We have a cable running on the inside of our flower bed to give power to the lamp posts in the garden. This was done by the previous owner and though this is encased in heavy pipe, the pipe is the blue one which should carry water! He was an expert in fixing things himself, not always safely. Yours sounds as if perhaps a previous owner also had outside lights, cable to greenhouse or a pond pump situated somewhere and this could be the reason. The only way to find out is trace the cable towards the house and see if it is connected anywhere, or find a friendly Electrician and see if it is live!

We have similar to Honeysuckles ... if we ever move from here I will definitely let the new owners know! It serves the garden lights and is safely encased in a white (easy to see) pipe.

There is an indicator sold at most hardware stores. It looks like a pen and it shows wether or not an electrical line or outlet is energized with electricity. Touch the tip of the pen to the item you want to check and if the light within the pen goes on that item is energized. No need for an electrician to find this out.

We have an electric cable that runs from our house to the shed, into a fuse box. It is armoured cable and linked to the house fuse box. There are further cables from the shed to the pond and to the summer house and to the garage- all run from the shed fuse box, all armoured.

I had an electrician look at the set up when I re-roofed the shed, he said they were safe because all cable was armoured and clearly visible to anyone gardening or working near it, it runs in a flower bed but just near a path.

If it is armoured and you know where it runs you should be okay. Armoured cable is thick- but flexible, mine is silver/grey colour, easily seen as not ordinary plastic coated two/three strand domestic wire. Burying domestic cable is not safe long term as the elements- sun and frost cause the plastic coating to deteriorate.

Could it be some sort of watering system - not electric cables?

we have cables in armoured casing to the workshops and garage. the one to the pond pump are not armoured but are protected and tucked under the lip of the wall and no one digs any where near it. they are also on a circuit breaker.

so the previous owner must have laid them. do you have any contact details for them such as a forwarding address you can contact them on?

welcome to GoY too.