Friday, January 18, 2013

- Possums from the ground and air

Possums venture down in their hordes from the surrounding nature reserves. They feast on new spring leaves and will persist with demolishing every new shoot until a tree might decide to give up and die. Our normal process is to surround the trunk with a clear plastic or tin cover which the possums cannot climb beyond. In the above case, the North American Red Oak is probably 8-10m high, and glider possums enter the foliage via a neighbouring pepper tree. Now 4 months into summer, and barely a leaf to be seen ...until 5 days ago I hung napthalene (moth balls) in the tree and suddenly life is reappearing in the leaves. Possums hate the scent. Fingers crossed that the success continues