In short
Native possums are protected across Australia — you cannot harm, poison or relocate them more than a short distance. The only reliable strategy is exclusion: wildlife-safe netting, tree-trunk collars, sealed roof cavities, humane smell repellents and a decoy plant they prefer over your tomatoes. Accept some coexistence — they eat snails too.
You go outside in the morning and the rose buds you were watching all week are gone. Every single one, bitten off cleanly, stems hanging bare. The tomato that was one sunny day away from ripening has a neat half-moon chomped out of it. The new growth on the lime tree? Stripped. Possums have been through, and the frustration is real.
Before you reach for whatever's under the sink — stop. In Australia, native possums are protected wildlife. You can't harm them, you can't poison them, and in most states you can't even trap and relocate them more than a very short distance. That sounds like a dead end, but it isn't. The strategies below are the ones that actually work, and they're all humane, legal, and grounded in how possums actually behave.
What possums actually eat in your garden
Possums are opportunistic browsers. They don't specialise — they'll try almost anything, and they develop individual preferences based on what's easy and what tastes good in their territory. The damage list is depressingly broad.
- Rose buds and new growth — possibly the single most common complaint. Ringtails in particular will strip rose bushes overnight.
- Fruit, especially stone fruit — peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots. They often take one bite out of many pieces rather than finishing one.
- New growth on citrus — young leaves and soft shoots on lemons, limes and oranges. Mature leaves are usually left alone.
- Tomatoes — yes, possums eat tomatoes. Green, ripe, anything. A common myth says they won't.
- Strawberries — at ground level and in hanging baskets.
- Leafy vegetables and seedlings — silverbeet, lettuce, spinach, newly planted brassicas.
- Roof insulation and wiring — brushtails move into roof cavities and cause real structural headaches, not just garden ones.
- Ornamentals — hibiscus, camellias, azaleas and gardenias are all on the menu in the wrong yard.
Ringtails (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) tend to be lighter, more selective browsers that stick to foliage and buds in the tree canopy. Brushtails (Trichosurus vulpecula) are bigger, bolder, and much more likely to come down into your veg beds, rip open compost bins, and move into your roof. If you've got a heavy ground-level raider, it's almost always a brushtail.
The legal and ethical bit — read this first
Possums are protected wildlife
Native possums — common brushtail, common ringtail, mountain brushtail, and other species — are protected under state wildlife legislation across Australia. Rules vary by state, but in practice there are things you cannot legally do, and things you can.
What you cannot do: harm or kill a possum, poison it, trap it and relocate it a long distance, or block it inside a roof cavity that contains young.
What you can do: exclude possums from specific areas (your roof, your vegetable beds, individual trees), use humane smell-based repellents, install motion-activated deterrents, and — where allowed under your state's rules — have a licensed controller trap a possum in a roof cavity for release back to the same property within a very short distance.
Check your state's wildlife department for specifics, because the detail differs. If you're unsure, default to exclusion — you cannot get in trouble for putting up a net.
Step-by-step possum defence
The strategy below works because it stacks. No single tactic keeps possums out forever — they're smart, persistent, and they habituate to anything predictable. Run two or three of these in combination and your damage drops to near zero.
Step 1 — Identify which possum is visiting
Look up at dusk with a torch. A brushtail is cat-sized, grey-brown, with a thick bushy tail and a strong build. You'll often hear them on the roof — they sound like a toddler wearing boots. Ringtails are smaller, slimmer, reddish-brown, with a long thin tail that curls at the tip and often has a white patch.
Brushtails come down to the ground readily, raid bins, open compost, and walk along fence lines. Ringtails rarely come down — they move tree-to-tree through the canopy. Knowing which one you're dealing with shapes the defence. A tree-trunk collar stops ringtails cold but a brushtail may just find another route. A roof-cavity seal is almost always a brushtail issue.
Step 2 — Exclude at entry points
Walk your roofline at dusk. Look for broken tiles, missing eave vents, open gable ends, unscreened chimneys, and any gap wider than about 5cm. Before sealing, confirm no possum is inside — block a suspected entry loosely with paper at dusk and check in the morning. If the paper has been pushed out, something lives there. If it hasn't been disturbed for two consecutive nights, you're clear to seal.
Seal with hardware cloth, sheet metal, or timber — not foam or mesh bags, which possums tear through. If you find a possum already resident, contact a licensed wildlife controller; in most states it is illegal to simply lock one inside or remove it yourself, and doing so at the wrong time of year can trap young in the roof.
For trees near the house or veg garden, fit a smooth metal collar — a 60–80cm wide band of galvanised sheet at about 1.5m up the trunk. They can't get a grip on it and give up on that tree. This is one of the highest-leverage interventions you can make and is especially effective against ringtails.
Step 3 — Physical barriers that actually work
Netting is the single most reliable tool in a possum-prone garden, but you have to get the netting right. Use white, knitted netting with a mesh size under 5mm — the standard required in parts of Victoria and recommended elsewhere to prevent wildlife entanglement. White is easier for wildlife to see at night. Mesh under 5mm means birds, bats and possums can't get a limb caught.
Do not use loose, wide-mesh black bird netting draped over a tree. It traps fruit bats and birds, causes horrific injuries, and is increasingly restricted across Australian states.
For fruit trees, drape wildlife-safe netting right over the canopy and tie it off at the trunk so there are no ground-level gaps. For raised vegetable beds, build a simple hoop frame from poly pipe and throw netting over it — a two-hour job that saves entire seasons. For individual seedlings, use cloches (upturned clear tubs with the bottom cut out work fine).
Step 4 — Humane smell-based repellents
Possums navigate the world by smell, and they avoid places that smell wrong. None of the methods below harm them — they just make your garden a less appealing stop on the nightly route.
Dog hair in stockings, tied to garden stakes. Free from your groomer and surprisingly effective. Blood and bone sprinkled around beds — dual use as a fertiliser. Garlic and chilli spray: blend 2 garlic bulbs and 2 chillies with 1L water, strain, add a dash of dish soap, spray on foliage. Commercial products like D-Ter and Sensa Spray use bitter or strongly-scented ingredients and work on the same principle.
Reapply weekly and always after rain. These deterrents work best in combination with physical barriers — they're a layer, not the whole defence.
Step 5 — Motion-activated deterrents
A motion-activated sprinkler that fits onto a standard garden hose (the ScareCrow-style units are the most common) genuinely works — possums hate getting sprayed and will avoid the zone. Motion-activated lights help too. The catch is habituation: if the device triggers in the same spot every night for a month, they learn to route around it.
Rotate the position every week or two. Combine with other tactics. Treat motion deterrents as a buffer, not a permanent wall.
Step 6 — Plant a decoy offering
This is the tactic most people miss. If possums have an easy, preferred food source elsewhere in the yard, they're much less motivated to fight through netting to get at the good stuff. Plant something they love — an apple tree, a loquat, or a patch of their favourite native flowers — in a corner of the yard away from your vegetable beds.
You're not feeding them to encourage them. They're coming anyway. You're redirecting where they feed. This is the same logic as a trap crop in our organic pest control guide — give the pest what it wants somewhere you don't mind losing, and the rest of the garden gets a break.
What does NOT work (and what will get you into trouble)
Relocating possums
Illegal in most states without a permit, and effectively a death sentence for the possum. Displaced possums are chased out or killed by resident possums in the new territory and often starve before they establish a feeding route. A new possum will also move into the vacated territory within days — you've solved nothing and caused a slow death in the process.
Poison
Illegal, cruel, and dangerous — poisons used against possums will also kill pets, native birds, and owls that eat the dying possum. Penalties under state wildlife acts can be substantial. Don't.
Ultrasonic "pest repellers"
Independent evidence that ultrasonic devices work on possums is weak. Possums may react briefly when a new device is installed but they habituate quickly. Save the money and spend it on netting or a motion sprinkler.
Plastic owls, rubber snakes, scarecrows
Work for about 48 hours. Possums are genuinely intelligent and they clock that the owl hasn't moved. Useful only if you rotate them every few days, and even then they're a minor layer at best.
Protecting specific crops
A few practical setups that I've seen work in real Australian gardens — cheap, effective, and easy to replicate.
Tomatoes
The classic tomato cage wrapped in wildlife-safe netting, pegged firmly at the base. Possums will try to push under, not go over — so ground-level security is key. For bigger patches, build a walk-in net enclosure from star pickets and netting. One season of secure tomatoes pays for the materials.
Strawberries and seedlings
Cloches work brilliantly. A clear upturned tub with the bottom cut out, pegged into the soil, protects individual plants until they're big enough to share. For larger beds, a low hoop tunnel with fine netting does the same job at scale.
Fruit trees
Wildlife-safe netting over the whole canopy, tied at the trunk. Combine with a metal trunk collar and you've solved the tree for the year. For espaliered trees against a fence, netting over a simple timber frame is even easier.
Raised vegetable beds
Four lengths of poly pipe bent into hoops, slotted into brackets on the corners of the bed, netting thrown over. Takes half a Saturday. Combine with companion planting to mix possum-unfriendly herbs (rosemary, lavender, sage) into the beds as a passive deterrent.
Living with possums — the long game
Here's the part that takes some swallowing. Possums are a permanent feature of most Australian gardens. If you live in a suburb with mature trees, you have possums. You will always have possums. The goal is not to eliminate them but to reach an equilibrium where your high-value crops are safe and the possums do their thing in the rest of the yard.
And they do useful things. Possums eat snails, slugs, insects, and a surprising amount of fallen fruit and leaf litter that would otherwise rot. A ringtail quietly browsing in the canopy is part of a healthy suburban ecosystem — the same ecosystem that gives you the birds, the native bees, and the soil life that make gardening possible.
Accept a small loss. Net what matters. Plant a decoy. Learn your visitor's routine. Within a season you stop noticing them except as a sound on the roof, and they stop noticing you except as the weird primate who keeps moving the sprinkler.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal to trap and relocate a possum in Australia?
In most Australian states, possums are protected native wildlife and you cannot simply trap and relocate them. Rules differ by state but typically a possum can only be removed from a building by a licensed operator and must be released on the same property, usually within a very short distance of where it was captured. Relocating a possum further is both illegal in most jurisdictions and effectively a death sentence — displaced possums struggle to find shelter and are often killed by resident possums in the new territory. Check your state's wildlife legislation and, if you need to remove one from a roof cavity, engage a licensed wildlife controller.
What should I do if I find an injured or orphaned possum?
Do not attempt to care for it yourself. Call your state's wildlife rescue service — WIRES in NSW, Wildlife Victoria in VIC, RSPCA Qld or local groups in other states — or your nearest vet. Check the pouch of any dead possum found on a road, as joeys can survive inside for some time after the mother is killed. Do not feed an injured possum or give it water in the meantime, as this can do more harm than good. Keep it warm, dark and quiet in a ventilated box until help arrives.
Do ultrasonic possum repellents actually work?
Independent evidence for ultrasonic repellents working on possums is weak at best. Most Australian wildlife experts and councils recommend focusing on exclusion and habitat-based strategies rather than electronic devices. Possums may react briefly when a new device is installed, but they habituate quickly. If you want a gadget-based deterrent, a motion-activated sprinkler is a far better investment than an ultrasonic unit.
What netting is safe to use on fruit trees to keep possums out?
Use white, knitted netting with a mesh size under 5mm — small enough that you can push a human finger through only with effort. Several Australian states have moved to restrict wide-mesh black bird netting because it tangles and kills birds, bats and possums. Wildlife-safe netting is sold by most garden centres and bee/fruit-tree suppliers. Keep the netting taut and secured at the base of the tree so possums can't push underneath.
Are possums actually useful in the garden?
Yes, in small ways. Possums eat snails, insects, and a surprising amount of fallen fruit and leaf matter, and they are a natural part of the ecosystem in most Australian suburbs. Ringtails in particular are relatively light browsers. The goal in a home garden is not to eliminate them but to reach a balance — exclude them from high-value crops and the roof cavity, and let them do their work in the rest of the yard.
What can I plant that possums tend to leave alone?
No plant is fully possum-proof, but strongly scented and textured foliage is less attractive. Rosemary, lavender, mint, sage, chives, geraniums and daisies tend to be left alone. Native species like correa, westringia and hardenbergia are also generally low on the menu. Keep your high-value crops — tomatoes, strawberries, stone fruit, roses, new citrus growth — in netted or caged areas, and use the unpalatable plants as a buffer around them.
Possums are not the enemy. They're just very good at being possums, and you happen to be growing things they like. Net what matters, seal the roof, set up a motion sprinkler, plant a decoy, and accept a small tax on the rest of the garden. For the broader pest picture, see the organic pest control guide and our companion planting guide for Australia. And if you want more of this kind of practical Australian gardening writing, a bit about what SteadGrow does is here.