The message
from Jim Lesurf contains these words:

/snip/

Every night nocturnal vermit, which I wll call 'cats' for the sake of
brevity, come along and keep scraping at this, trying to leave places to
deposit kind 'gifts'. This makes a right mess, covering the small plants
with cocoa mulch, and pulling up edges of the membrane, and getting mulch
underneath.

I have tried putting out granules smelling of citronella - but the 'cats'
seem to have no sense of smell.

Find a chemical distribution firm, or order from a good chemist a
plastic jar of aluminium ammonium sulphate and sprinkle some of the
crystals over the area. Cats have a very developed sense of smell - I
can't smell anything from the crystals.

They break down into useful compounds.

I have also tried ultrasonic 'animal away' scarers (sic) - but they seem
stone deaf as well.

IME they're useless.

I'd like to try two things:

1) On a 'Gardener's World' programme on BBC a few weeks ago they showed in
passing some staples for fixing membrane to the ground. Our local garden
center has never heard of them. So can someone give contact details for
where I can buy some of these (or an equivalent) but post?

Buy some fencing wire from an ironmonger or DIY place. Cut into lengths
- how long depends how soft your ground is. Bend it into |¯¯| shape and
press into the ground through the membrane round the edge.

2) I'd like to replace the cocoa mulch with something heaver. e.g. pebbles
around 20mm diameter. Again, our local garden center has none. So can
someone recommend a source where I can buy these buy post?

Post? POST? Have you any idea how much that would cost? Most builders'
merchants deliver.

I'm hoping that by employing both the above I can put off the 'cats'. But I
have my doubts... :-/

Slainte,

Slaìnte mhòr.

--
Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The only way to tell when a Finn is in love with you
is that they look at your feet instead of their own.