A while ago I set up a new border along one side of our garden. This
consists of an area where I have planted some varieties of clematis along a
fence, and in front of these some small azalia and potentilla bushes.

I covered the ground with a patchwork of weed-suppressing membrane, and
covered this with cocoa mulch, and the area is bordered with a low wooden
edging.

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.

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

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?

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?

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

Slainte,

Jim

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