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Possums are adorable when they are climbing trees and dashing across electrical wires. But it can be frustrating when they are munching on your home-grown fruit and vegetables or keeping you up at night by dancing on the roof.
Fortunately, I'm sure the Workshop community can come to the rescue of anyone struggling with neighbourhood possums.
What are your tips for keeping possums out of your garden or away from your house?
Jason
Community manager's note: Due to the popularity of possum discussions on the site, we have created two helpful guides:
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @bect73. It's fabulous to have you join us and many thanks for contributing to the discussion.
It certainly seems like you are running a longstanding battle there and have tried just about every trick in the book.
If you want to deter them from eating ornamental and edible crops, it might be worth trying something like Yates 1L Ready To Use Possum Repellent Spray which is a foliar spray you apply directly to the plants.
We look forward to hearing more about your methods of deterring possums and other projects you are working on around your house and garden. Please let us know anytime you need assistance with them or have something to share with the community. I trust you'll find loads of inspiration within the community as our amazing members are contributing their own projects here all the time.
Mitchell
Thanks for joining in the discussion @colinw and a warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. We trust that you will receive plenty of helpful information, advice and inspiration from our amazing community members as you join in other discussions and share your projects.
Please feel free to post anytime you have something to share with the community or need a hand with a project around the house and garden.
Jason
I had a severe problem with Possum eating my fully grown Mangoes or Pumpkins or Oranges when I am about to Harvest a few years back!
I was very keen then to grow all veggies in my small backyard and was committed. Though I had good success with Chillies, Snowpeas, Cucumber, Capsicums, Beetroot, Carrots, Jelaprnos, Lebanese eggplant, partial success with Cauliflower, Cabbage, Tomatoes. It was a total disappointment with possums eating or biting a large chunks of Pumpkin, Mangoes Oranges.
I was able to protect the Vegie patches on the soil which had Plastic Edgers by installing a series of Wooden poles around the patch standing firmly 3feet apart with metal hooks screwed into them at the top, middle and bottom; and later wrapping them with white nylon bird mesh that is sold in Bunnings without leaving a gap anywhere for entry!
These kept the patches in tact without hindering the growth of the plants. The only downside I had was to remove the mesh during Sunny day time so that enough Sunlight comes on the plants and rushing back around sunset to close the Nylon Bird Mesh tightly around the patches such that the nocturnal possums do not have an access.
Hi @manisalem45,
Many thanks for sharing your solution with the community. That total exclusion method has worked the best for me in the past as well. I left the top open on mine and just had the netting running vertically around the bed's perimeter attached to stakes. I'm not sure if the possums didn't like climbing up the netting, but they didn't get inside. The benefit of the open-top was that I didn't need to pull it back each day.
Mitchell
I love small furry animals, especially our Australian ones, but some of them don’t endear themselves to me, especially ring-tail and bushy-tail possums when they chow down on my plants.
I’ve gardened harmoniously with possums now for many years. I let them use the ridge of my roof and the perimeter fences as “possum highways” on the condition they leave my plants alone. This year, however, some of them either didn’t get or didn’t read the memo.
My garden contains a broad range of plants, from delicate groundcovers and herbaceous peonies to tall shrubs including roses. One rose is a particular favourite with its blue-mauve blooms – it happens to be in a bed along the fence.
Just as the spring flush of soft new shoots were at their peak and a prodigious number of flower buds were about to burst into bloom, the possums struck.
Quite literally over one night, the whole lot disappeared – chomped into oblivion.
I hope the dear little critters had indigestion from over-indulging!
Having previously suffered property damage from a very friendly bunch of sulphur-crested cockatoos who took delight in ripping the flyscreens on the back windows to shreds and had started on the handrails of the decking, I knew about spiky protection. I browsed the aisles at Bunnings and found quite an array available.
So, now, the “possum highway” along the fence is no longer. It’s been permanently interrupted by a row of spikes atop the palings and some even spikier spikes along the top rail.
Easy to install, hopefully they’ll keep the pesky nibblers at bay and I’ll get to enjoy my rose blooms – when the bush recovers and throws more buds.
Sorry to hear about your beautiful roses, @Noelle. Possums always seem to strike right at the most opportune time. It's expected the day after you're just admired how well a plant is growing.
I remember as a young gardener, I'd planted out about 100 snap sugar peas which were all growing strongly and around 200mm tall. I was a couple of days off selecting the strongest ten to grow on when suddenly there was no new growth one day. After about a week of the seedlings appearing inactive, I couldn't quite determine what was going wrong. That was until I noticed that possums had cropped the very succulent growing tip off each and every seedling, condemning them all to permanent stasis. Very disappointing.
I'm glad to see you've solved your issue with the use of exclusion products. You'll need to update us when you get some blooms. I'm sure they'll be magnificent and well worth the effort you've gone to.
Many thanks for sharing your method, as I trust our members with similar possum related issues will find your experience useful.
Mitchell
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