Have a small bucketful near your chair on the patio, then whenever you see a squirrel or a cat digging in your garden you will have plenty of amunition on hand.

Thanks, Ink. If I start flinging them around the garden, I'll have to pick them up again. The invisible fence is going in tomorrow, so I'll be relying on the Shih Tzus to keep unauthorized cats and squirrels out.

In fact, I used the larger ones today to hold up one side of a raised bed I'm putting in on a slope until I can get it re-graded.
The smaller ones are accumulating, maybe I'll build me one of them arches like I saw over on the LD forum. Or, hey! how about a stone and mortar BIRDHOUSE!
Jo

I use mine as stone mulch in the indoor plant pots. It stops the orange fuzzball from digging in them.

I never thought of that Jo but if you pick them up aerobically there could be a health benefit.
I know this forum is a bit slow (molasses on a cold day) but am I the only one that noticed "orange fuzzball"?
On a more serious note, you could use the small ones in a walkway.

I built a drystone wall out of larger chunks of the local red-brown to grey stone -- and wherever there's a suitable space, I tucked in an egg-sized river rock, most of them golden-yellow. I like the contrast, and it adds a whimsical touch. And picks up the colors of the yellow-and-maroon garden below (heuchera, golden Creeping Jenny, woods poppy, etc).

Lynn

The orange fuzzball is large, part Maine Coon cat who is his mother's darling and can do no wrong even when he digs up house plants.

I thought about using them for a path, but thought the rounded shape would make them slippery. Do you think birds would like a stone birdhouse or would it have to be strictly ornamental? I could use a wood roof that was removable for cleaning. Good winter project.
Jo

The larger ones can go in a birdbath for those that like to stand on something when getting a drink.

The smaller ones I use at the bottem of potted plants for drainage.

I also use them on top of my pond plants to keep the dirt in and the fish from eating them.

I've found them useful under trees, especially is they're surrounded by lawn or growing in a place where you can't easily mow round the tree trunk. I laid some good landscape fabric & layers of newspaper in a circle round the trunk. Then, over that I laid down a circle of stones.

Of course the stones eventually gather dead leaves & such so about once a year I remove them all, hose them off and put them back them. (It's nearly time to do it again). I've learned though that it's a lot easier if I avoid using smaller stones.

It's kept the weeds down and I like how it looks.

Click here to see it

I created a dry stream bed out of the medium stones, out by my pond. I have a pea gravel area about 20 x 30 feet. I used to have running water in there, but I had trouble keeping the small pond full, it would run over. I guess it ran out of the big pond faster than my pump could pump it back. But I like the dry stream bed anyway.
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