Hungry Possums

[fae]

Good Morning
Each morning for the last week or so I have been presented with nightly possum defoliation. Firstly it was the crap apples,then hawthorns and now trident maples.
They tend to knock other plants off the benches in their seatch for food.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to stop these creatures nibbling, no really devouring my bonsai ?
I live in a very treed area of northwestern Sydney .
Thanks
Fiona

[Ron]

I have lots of possums around my place too. Last month had five come down the chimney over a two week period and they can't get back up it again. I had to lure them into one of those wicker baskets for cats. I've now put a metal screen over the chimney top.

Luckily they don't touch my trees as my neighbour has a couple of enormous, never pruned, apple trees and they happily munch on the fruit. Just wish they wouldn't have athletics carnivals on my roof when I'm trying to sleep. And that possum heavy breathing noise they make outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night is kind of spooky.

Sorry none of that solves your problem ....

Good luck.

Ron ...

[Watto]

Fiona,
There is a product called D-Ter that works OK. Its not 100% but it should give you some relief.
Good luck with those little critters.
Watto

[Jarrod]

crap apples

What's wrong with the apples?

[bodhidharma]

crap apples

What's wrong with the apples?

must be that time of night

[Kyushu Danji]

Haha, we have a similar problem here. They even got into our attic and started playing havoc with our insulation and roof tiles Haven't touched my crab apples yet though...probably only a matter of time.

[gollum]

you could also plant an apple tree in your yard as a long term solution
or feed the possums fruit and vegie scraps away from your plants

[Petra]

poss.jpg

[fae]

Thanks everyone for your responses and suggestions.

Love the drawing of the possums eating the crap apples, will teach me to edit my future posts.

Fiona

[Mudeye]

Dried chilli powder over a sacrifice tree sorry tree hungers

[Mudeye]

Fastest animal in the world.....chilli powder possium....LoL

Mud

[fae]

Thanks Mudeye
Tried the chilli powder last night and it seems to have worked, will continue for a week or so hopefully to break the habit.
Thanks
Fiona

[Glenda]

They do not like camphor blocks. Sit the blocks on your benches between the trees. Possums won't come near. We also had some that had taken up residence in the overhand (we have a high Queenslander). Sprayed them with pine-scented Pine-O-Clean because I didn't have any camphor on hand. That also worked - they haven't been back. Being North Queensland ours are brushtail possums, not the ringtails of the south (if that helps)

Glenda

[Greth]

Apple mush and arsenic works well, or so I am told...
It is a real problem in rural areas, remove them to the wild? yeah really, over to the tree where they live, well heck that will save them a walk.
They are territorial, if you can remove the actual one who thinks your bonsai area is his territory, then others will not intrude. This is true, I had enormous possum difficulties when I first started herb selling, every coriander and parsley razed to the ground. The bugger actually walked past the same plants in my veggie patch to get to my sale ones, night after night. Once we removed the offending beastie, I leave the shadehouse completely unprotected and no damage there. And for legal purposes, this had nothing to do with apple mush and arsenic.
Just starting to see some toothmarks in my tomatoes, but I think the toms will win, theres a heck of a lot of them and the little varmint only nibbles on one a night.
One more possum note: if you see one in a tree at night while driving, do not park underneath and blow the horn, it scares the coriander outta them!

[Ron]

I've been watching some pomegranate flowers changing into fruit over the last few days until this afternoon's watering. They were all gone!

I'm pretty sure it must've been a possum as the pot was on a middle shelf and some plants above it have broken branches (nothing special thankfully).

Speaking of pests: I've got some VERY hot chillies growing and, presumably, a bird took a bite out of one last week. That bird would've have had one very sore mouth if the chilli didn't kill it.