I'm a bit unclear on how you are using the stones. Are they flat stones that will be walked on? If so are you planning to fit them tightly together or just plop them down as stepping stones? Or are you using them to outline where the paths will go?

The idea would be to find the flattest ones possible so they could be walked on. I guess I'd like to hear your opinion about the fitting together versus stepping-stones idea. Since they are just the naturally occuring stones from the soil (some very large; many quite flat) I am not sure how closely I could fit them together.

I use the cardboard and mulch trick for making new beds . It smothers the grass and is so much quicker than digging out the grass. I never use more than 2/3 inches of mulch and by next season I will have some weeds but it's not hard to manage if you want to use roundup or just dig em up. Maybe you may have longer results with more than one layer of cardboard or thicker mulch ? Or even carpet scraps under the cardboard should really help, we've done that before. Good luck and of course we must see pics ! :)

Also I think spacing them as stepping stones is perfect !

I've done the cardboard and flats stones trick for a nice cottagy walkway - I used pea gravel instead of much though. It worked quite well I thought and looked quite nice.

Nancy (dying to see pics, btw)

Thank you,ladies! I am not big on photographing, but will try to post something...best wishes, bart

I would probably set the stones down into the mulch, moving aside the mulch and nestling the stones down into it for a more level surface. If it's a path you'll be walking on a lot, I would probably fit them closer together or just leave it as mulch, without the stones in the path. I find stepping stones difficult to walk on since they never seem to fit my stride, but if you don't mind that, set them as you want. You could use rocks as edging to differentiate the path from the beds since it will all be mulched.

I have a garden where the previous tenant used carpet as mulch. Whatever bound it together decomposed, and 17 years down the road I'm still removing carpet fiber from the soil, so I wouldn't recommend that.

I guess the reason why I'm thinking of using the stones is sort of to help keep the wood chips in place ,since the paths tend to slope downwards. I guess I'm hoping that I could manage to choose the stones and place them carefully enough to create a sort of stairs-like effect (I don't know how to describe what I mean exactly, but the idea would be to compensate a bit for the natural down-ward slope of the paths by using the large stones...) I can see what you mean about fitting them close together to make walking more comfortable.And, yes, nestleing the stones down! maybe even dumping extra chips on top of the whole thing to make it more even...