You Love Having a Succulent Garden; So Do Opossums

Opossums (or possums) are omnivorous, meaning they’re ready and happy to eat virtually anything they get their little claws on — meats, plants, nuts; it doesn’t matter. They’ll eat it.

While that’s necessary for their survival, it also puts you and everyone else in a challenging situation. If opossums are willing to eat anything, they’re eager to eat anything. Possums will gladly eat whatever they can find around them. However, possums will enjoy a few delicacies if they come across them.

This includes succulents, a specific favorite for the small marsupials. And, well, if you happen to have a succulent garden that you enjoy, then you’ll probably find a few others that share the same sentiments. After all, you love having a succulent garden; so do opossums.

How Can I Tell It Is Opossums?

There are two easy ways: seeing possums and knowing that opossums and missing succulents exist in the same area. Either one of those points strongly towards an opossum having eaten some of your succulents.

You’ll likely be able to tell if an opossum has enjoyed your succulent garden by an absence of other plants, animals, and objects around your property. Remember, opossums are omnivorous and glad to eat whatever they can gain access to.

What Can I Do To Stop Possums From Entering My Succulent Garden?

The most straightforward answer is to block it off. Fencing is usually a good solution, in addition to potentially moving the garden inside. Luckily, succulents are very hardy plants, meaning that you should be able to relocate them to virtually anywhere with the sun, and they’ll thrive.

That’s specifically notable when opossums keep finding their way to your garden. But, again, they’re very generous when it comes to eating their favorites, including when it comes to things like climbing over or squeezing through fences to get to your garden.

The easiest first step is to ensure that there’s at least some barrier between what you want to protect and the opossums. Fences are a great start, but it’s also helpful to move into mesh netting, a little moat, or whatever else you can put between a snack and its eater.

You also could place succulents in higher spaces, surrounded by objects that opossums can’t easily climb. Fortunately, they’re not too great at climbing, meaning that anything smooth or shiny will be difficult for them to scale up. And, luckily, that’s often all that it’ll take to prevent possums from gaining access to your succulent garden.

What If That Doesn’t Work?

Unfortunately, that’s only “often all that it’ll take.” So many times, you’ll still be left with a step or two more that’s necessary to keep opossums out. 

This extra step generally means trapping, though. If you can’t keep the opossum away, the only option is to take it away actively. Nine times out of ten, that means trapping, which can be safe for the opossum and incredibly effective for you

However, it can also be kind of difficult to set up and potentially risky for you. As such, it might be necessary for you to call a trapping company, like All Star Animal Trapping, which has the specialty to assist you through any questions and the tools and expertise if you need them to do it.

And, again, this, combined with relocating your garden, is enough to keep possums away for most cases. However, you might have to go even further and consider an option such as entry prevention and extra protection. In these cases, you may have to investigate repairs, mesh covering, or more.

Opossums, if they find food, might move into your property, putting both your garden and you at risk. When it comes to this, it’s safer and more effective to get someone else to take care of the possum for you. Again, traps are a huge assist in this scenario, but they can be difficult.

Keeping Opossums Out, Again

However, none of this will work unless you actively prevent the opossums from returning. So if you have just trapped a possum and are relocating it (in a place that you’re legally able to — some jurisdictions won’t let you), you might need to invest in prevention quickly.

Even if the little creature itself doesn’t return to continue attacking your property, another might, whether it’s another possum, a raccoon, squirrel, bat, or snake, there’s something else that’s probably going to take its place. After all, the opossum would have moved in for a food source and shelter. Every other animal needs a food source and protection, meaning that something will probably take its place.

So, if you love having a succulent garden, it’s helpful to take advantage of some of these hints and steps, which should hopefully prevent opossums from sharing the same thoughts even if it’s a lovely succulent garden.