Hi Idaro and welcome to GoY. If your shrubs are being choked 'yes' get the membrane off! The problem isn't the quartz or the moss but the fact that your shrubs are being deprived of water due to same... Once you've removed them loosen the soil and be prepared to give a lot of t.l.c. to the shrubs. BTW why did you put the membrane down in the first place and what are the shrubs?

it's not the membrane causing moss growth on the stones, but if you want to clean the stones and its not a large area, its probably easier to lift the membrane, with stones, to remove them for washing. Otherwise, scrape the stones off for cleaning. Membrane (as opposed to plastic sheeting, which I assume you don't mean) doesn't deprive plants of water, but if its been down a while, as your plants grow and expand, its likely the holes originally cut in order to plant the shrubs are now too small, and are 'strangling' the base of the shrubs, so those holes need to be cut larger if you want to keep/replace the membrane. It is advisable to put a membrane back down if you want to replace the cleaned quartz chippings, or you want to lay new chippings, otherwise they tend to disappear into the soil over time if laid onto bare soil.

Alternatively, dispense with the membrane and chippings, and use an organic mulch directly on the exposed soil instead, like small bark chips or composted materials. These will need topping up regularly as they biodegrade, but have the advantage of not needing cleaning.

As you lift the membrane up the stones will pile up in front of you making the whole affair too heavy to lift any further. Go slow and shovel the rocks off as you go. The whole thing seems like too much work for one person. I suggest that you get some help or leave it as is.

These are stones, not rocks Loosestrife, Idara should be perfectly capable of removing them prior to lifting the membrane.

So you say MG. Saying is always easy whereas doing is another matter.

Remove the stones a few at a time when they are all out of the way then, and only then, tackle the lifting of the membrane. Right now Loosestrife if it wren't for Bulba nothing would be happening in our garden, I'm waiting on open heart surgery, that said the only way Indaro is going to improve that area of the garden is by working on it. If he/she can't I would suggest they ask someone for help. Until recently I'd have happily demolished something lil that, actually I wouldn't have put the membrane or quartz down on the first place...

I would use the membrane if you don't want to weed, you haven't got ground cover plants, won't want to plant anything new, and you're never going to improve the soil or fertilize anything, but if the quartz chippings are pale in colour, especially, white, I wouldn't ever recommend them. The dirt, algae and moss show much less on pea shingle or gravel, but the trouble with all these hard mulches is, they always end up looking mucky over time. It's just paler coloured ones look mucky earlier... and weeds eventually start growing in it too. Lots of people use slate which stays cleaner longer and is less likely to encourage early weed growth, but I always think its so depressing to look at, especially during dull, dark days, so I never use that either.

The best all round option all round is actually no membrane, with the soil covered in organic mulch at least once a year - improves the soil, makes it a better environment for plants and micro life forms.

Loosestrife, just out of interest - when we say "rocks" we in the UK mean something quite big - under perhaps 12 or 18" or so is a stone here. Do you have different words for little ones and huge ones? Do you use the word stone? I think this is another example of our different usages. (another is your use of "dirt" where we would say soil. Dirt to us is something nasty that needs washing off...) Another example of our being divided by a common language...
(Sorry Idarobertson - just thought this was interesting...)

When "quartz stones" was mentioned by Aida Robertson in the question the image I had in mind is the kind of decorative stone sold in bags at the GC. In my answer I use both "stone" and "rock". I love to use synonyms in order to avoid word repetition and here the noun rock could be of any size..e.g.. boulder...stone....pebble. Rock self adjusted to the size of the topic mentioned. If we were talking about landslides the size of the "rock" would have been much larger of course. More importantly, Moon growe, I wish you the speediest of recoveries as you rest and wait for the spring to come:)

Thanks L - I thought that must be it. We never use rocks here for small stones and pebbles.

I second the good wishes to MoonGrower - let us know when you are due to go in MG, so we can be thinking about you!