Galvanized hardware cloth "cozies". Leave a large enough hole in it for the plant to expand, lay it down around the base of the plant and cover with mulch. It won't prevent the bugger from trying, but can prevent it from accomplishing its goal which is to get to anything edible in the soil around the plant. Are you sure it's an opossum or could it be raccoons? They LOVE tearing up plantings to get to worms and grubs in the soil. If you've laid sod and you awaken to find it neatly rolled back into the original rolls, it's adult racoons feeding. If it's shredded and all over, it's young ones, usually being taught how to do it by adults. The young ones are "enthusiastic" about it, which the adults are quite a bit more anal and methodical. Kim

Thank you, Kim.

At feeding time, I wouldn't be able to scratch in granular fertilizer but it should dissolve with successive waterings, correct?

Are you sure it is a possum? Possums only stay in one place about 3-4 days, then they move on. I have the same thing you are describing, but it is definitely squirrels in my yard, and sometimes also raccoons. Kim's idea is a good one.

Whenever my DH decides to re-seed a small part of our lawn, he has to cover the new area with chicken wire, or the raccoons will dig it all up by morning.

Jackie

You're welcome! No, you won't be able to scratch anything in, but I never do, any way. Nature does that just fine all by herself between the bugs and birds. It beats having to replant everything after a critter becomes enamored with "shopping". Kim

Thanks, Kim.

I'm not certain it's a possum, but we've seen possums in the yard. I saw a small one a few weeks ago scrounging around ... actually I heard it first, then shined a flashlight in its eyes from inside the house, and it froze and stared at me with that possum-in-the-headlights look, LOL. We've also seen skunks in the past but not lately.

I keep animals away from newly planted small roses by putting a barrier of thorny rose canes around them. It's worked very well and doesn't take much effort on my part. When I prune I save the really thorny bits (the softer top parts I just put under the roses as mulch) and put them in a pile behind the house until I need them.

Ingrid

Ingrid, I use thorny rose canes everywhere I see evidence of digging. I placed a few around the roses but the critter just laughs and digs anyway... I guess I need to build a thick barrier with mulch on top to hide them. I'll start saving more canes for that purpose.

Daffodils rings are another good barrier.

I'd be more concerned why critters are digging around the roots. Skunks, raccoons, possums will go for grubs, which you don't want near your roots. If you have used bone meal, that will also attract critters.

In 18 years of gardening on the edge of the chaparral, I tried every "poisonous" and "allergic" bulb possible. Narcissus, Amaryllis belladonna, Daffodils, you name it. NONE of them "repelled" or otherwise prevented any critter from digging, burrowing or otherwise molesting the roses and other companion plantings. The bulbs and their plant parts were not eaten, but they were pulled and dug from the ground; burrowed directly under and otherwise ignored as a food source. And, they all provided prized food for all the snails and slugs. Kim

Unless you want to be very vigilant about spraying repellent all the time (and some of them do work) a fine mesh chicken wire or hardware cloth is the only thing the really works to keep out rodents of any kind. The deer, on the other hand, are another story all together. Short of an 8 foot fence, I don't think anything will keep them out!

We used to have friends who had their pet rabbit loose in the back yard during the day. They took 3ft wide chicken wire, 1" mesh, and folding down the middle, laid it along the fence line (1/2 up, 1/2 down on the dirt), wrapped it around the trees and shrubs they didn't want bun to eat. It wasn't beautiful, but it worked nicely, and it didn't need to be so tight that the plant could not grow. I think the only place it was really fastened was along the fence line, where they stapled the top (vertical) half of the chicken wire to the fence so the rabbit couldn't pull it down.

What I've done in the past to keep cats out of garden beds was to lay down concrete reinforcing wire flat on the dirt. Again, not beautiful, but quite functional. Alas, the first time I did it, I paid $35 or so for the roll, and when I priced it at HD a few weeks ago, it was $103 for the same roll. 15 years of inflation in steel prices....

I wish they would make such a thing in plastic. I worry about the metal rusting and hurting innocent little paws. Hooray for possums. They eat roaches, snails, slugs, grasshoppers. Lots of things that you don't want around. My raccoons go for grubs and earthworms and larger fare. They will dig where you have used organic fertilizers. To check and see if you have raccoons or possums use the water test. Put out a deep plant saucer of water at night. Next morning if you have a saucer full of mud, then you have raccoons. If the saucer was used as a bathroom, it was the possum. I had to give up my little goldfish pond for just this reason. Raccoons love eggs. I leave them out sometimes and watch the fun. Cleaning up the eggshells is work though.

They do make plastic hardware cloth and window screen. You can buy it definitely at Home Depot and probably Lowe's. It's black so it doesn't show up well when covered with mulch. It's a whale of a lot easier to cut than the metal and doesn't scratch you. I use it to cover my seed boxes to prevent the critters from digging up the seeds and eating the seedlings. Kim

Don't bother with the plastic. They will chew right through it. I tried it last winter around one bed and by spring there was hardly any of it left that was chewed to shreds and the roses as well.

We have a family of skunks that like to spend their evenings hunting worms and grubs in the beds. They leave small V shaped holes where they sniff around.

I have asked my guy to help with the "skunk diversion project"; I had read they do not like male scented urine. The goal is to hit the bark and not the plants, so far the skunks have decided the front yard is better than the back yard (not as easy to "mark" the front yard)

Here, it would be armadillos after earthworms, and good luck with deterring them. They're like little tanks, and you can't catch them in a trap unless they just happen to blunder into it since they're nearsighted. Possums here don't get into anything but cat food. Raccoons don't get into anything except my pots. A pot can sit empty of everything but soil for months until spring when I replant. Then the raccoons dig everything out I just planted. I've discovered if I pepper the @$&: out of the new plantings with black pepper for the first two or three days, then they leave them alone after that.

Thanks for great tip of blackpepper, floridarose. I once sprinkled garlic powder and cayenne pepper on my annual flowers - rabbits still eat them.

I was given a container of a concentrated pepper spray by a nurseryman friend some years ago. It required me to spray only while wearing chemical resistant goggles and a respirator. It was strong enough that if inhaled, it could cause respiratory arrest. With the spreader/sticker it required, following the directions to the letter, as the stuff scared the heck out of me, it burned the foliage on everything I sprayed it on. And the !#*##! rabbits STILL ate the plants! The only thing I have ever sprayed which stopped both cotton tails and jacks from eating roses was the old Lily Miller Spray and Grow liquid metaldehyde snail bait. Those rodents wouldn't touch anything coated in that stuff. Yes, it would have been illegal to use it as rabbit repellant, which I didn't use it for. It not only knocked down all the snails and slugs, but protected all the roses where I sprayed it. Kim

Looks like we're in good company. Fortunately, the only real damage so far is a new Daylily that was dug up in Spring, but it survived after being replanted.