There is nothing more disheartening for a gardener to find a plant chewed off to the stem, and the crime scene pointing to an obvious suspect.
Living with possums is a fact of life across Australia, as suburbia slowly and steadily encroaches onto bushland.
Gardeners have shared all sorts of home remedies to try to repel possums using garlic spray, mothballs, blood and bone, and even dog hair.
Wildlife expert with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy Sally Bryant said humans and animals could live together happily.
"You can have a really beautiful native garden that accommodates native wildlife," she said.
Dr Bryant said if possums were a problem, they could be outsmarted.
"We've got all sorts of techniques for netting, barriers, floppy-top fencing, electric fencing.
"It may be that fencing is required until the crop becomes established and then a certain portion of it can go to wildlife."
Solitary browsers
Tasmania has five species of possums, including the brushtail possum, sugar glider, ringtail possum and two species of pygmy possums.
The brushtail possum is found in all capital cities around Australia.
Dr Bryant said the brushtail was the biggest of the species and did the most damage to gardens.
She said possums were "browsers" when it came to food, which made them a successful species.
"Possums will eat whatever and will forage on whatever is available," she said.
She said possums were mostly solitary, but could establish territories.
"You can have small groups of possums that overlap," she said.
"Often it's only one or two possums that can create problems.
"We're not talking about plagues in urban areas, but on farmland and cropping land you can get high densities that do create problems."
Gardening around possums
Hobart nursery manager Lauren Chandler said possum woes were common among her customers.
"Unfortunately it's very common for people to have a problem with possums," Ms Chandler said.
"It's a problem that started off on bigger properties but now it's right down in residential areas."
She said some people swore by their home remedies to repel possums, while others said nothing but fences worked.
"People try a spray that is a repellent, you basically spray it until they give up because it doesn't taste very nice," she said.
"Sometimes it can be a short-term solution if you're growing veggies, but you can't use it as a permanent solution."
Ms Chandler said floppy-top fences were an effective measure to keep possums out.
"They don't like unstable surfaces."
Ms Chandler said some plants were less appealing to possums, such as prickly plants, but nothing could be guaranteed.
"Once plants get established they can generally handle a little bit of a nibble.
"It's just protecting them until the stems and trunks are strong enough that they can support a possum."
Different strategies
Gardeners in a large social media group shared possum remedies, including collecting dog hair from groomers to put around fruit trees and vegetables, and hanging blood and bone in stockings from trees.
Others said garlic spray and mothballs had worked for them.
For Quamby Brook gardener Ray Landsmann, a fence structure he described as "the Berlin Wall" was the only solution to saving his vegetables.
"There are two strands of possum-proof electric wires on top of the fence," he said.
"It works a treat, I wouldn't have a vegetable growing without it.
Other gardeners reported that having one dominant male possum in their garden kept others away, or feeding possums meant the marsupials had less appetite for their plants.
Dr Bryant said feeding wild animals could cause other problems.
"Our philosophy is to provide a resource they can select from, because when you artificially feed it, it changes the behaviour of the animals and they regularly hang around the feed station," she said.
"There are all these negatives but it isn't hard and fast."
Dr Bryant said property owners were finding creative ways to live with possums, including in the house's architecture.
"If you've got possums in your roof you can install boxes under your eaves that they can sleep in and not be in your roof cavities," she said.
She also pointed to the successful Land for Wildlife program, which has been running for 20 years and assists private landowners to voluntarily undertake nature conservation on their properties.
