Also if anyone knows how tropical plants like Alpinia, Cordyline, Heliconia, Zingiber etc go with possums that would be great too!

There's no indication of your State/area or whether you are rural/suburban. Though it sounds like you are temperate or sub-tropical?

We are SEQ and suburbia but with some residual tall gums in the area and seem to have had a few brush-tails around for years. Perhaps I just don't grow things that interest them but they seem to enjoy the gums for protection and food when they are in flower. They ravaged my guava and my neighbour's mangos. Apart from that it's only the noise of their nocturnal activities and thumping over the metal roof that disturbs me. And the one that got inside - briefly.

I'm only going to add a link to a SA gov't source that has some fact sheets and that might provide some help and you might find similar in your own state's relevant departments.

http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/managing-natural-resources/Plants_Animals/Living_with_wildlife/Possums/Relocating_possums

Hi, sorry, I'm in Sydney. I'm used to posting on the US forums where only the zone really matters! Tall gums and other large natives are not really what I'm looking for, as we don't have a massive backyard. It's an old house and we were hoping to go with a cottage style/edible garden, as it would suit the house. Unfortunately that isn't working out very well!

I'm over run with possums, the Northern Brushtail. They get into my shed, fight amongst themselves and make a real mess. They seem to do more physical damage rather than eating things. I have a lot of mangos and so many things that are eating them it's hard to pinpoint what is actually done by the possums. They don't seem to touch any of the Alpinia, Cordyline, Heliconia, Zingiber species, although the wallabies do with the latter two. Strangest I have seen were lemons still on the tree with the rinds eaten off by possums. First time I saw it I thought the lemons had some sort of mould growing on them. Getting rid of possums isn't easy. Firstly, where do you move them to? And even if you do more usually come in to take their place. If you plant things for them to eat rather than your important plants then you just encourage a bigger possum population in your back yard which will strip everything. You can put metal guards around tree trunks to stop them climbing up, but they can jump from nearby fences or other trees. There's no real easy fix.

One of the offenders on one of my mangos, cute aren't they?

Thanks for answering all my posts :) I'll definitely look into the Birdgard product, it's just so hard to know what will work and some of those products aren't cheap! So it's great to have a recommendation from someone else who has the most highly desired possum snacks (roses)!

brightstar, if you like i could lend you mine after I've used it again. I need to use it for at least a month, then you could have it. My daughter goes OS tomorrow - haven't felt able to use it while she's here, and still feel guilty.....

I use to have heaps of possums but my neighbour cut down all the bordering trees and that, along with 'hissing-sid', our magnificent non-poisonous snake (a python, I think) took care of them. Sid useto winter over in my roof cavity, shedding his skin and getting bigger on all he could swallow. Unfortunately, sid, who was close to 2, 3 metres long, has disappeared.