Ok, Third idea.. I was trying to think of things I could do with this beautiful stone that is otherwising going to be wasted, and pushed in a hole and buried. I thought of building a large outdoor fireplace. I'm building a deck now that'll be about 500sqft+a 12ft gazebo attached at one corner. I have one long side, 13 feet long that I was just going to have a bench on. (No railing because it'll only be about 20" off the ground. My plan: Pour a 4" concrete pad, the size of the fireplace. It would be about 4ft front to back, and probably 6 ft wide. Use cement blocks, and some mortar, and building up the skeleton of the fireplace from the pad. It would probably come up to about 4 or 5 feet above the deck surface. I'd use these granite countertop chunks, different sizes, to cover every visible surface of it. even the inside of the fire box would be a wider slab across the bottom, and the sides and top also built up. I could flare out the sides from the fire box, so the flames reflect lots of light off the gorgeous stone all the way to the edges. I could either do a shurt chimney, or slant the roof of the fire box to direct the smoke out the back side, leaving a small rear opening at the top of the fire box on the back for smoke to exit. I may even design it with the idea of adding gas in the future, though it would have to be an LP tank cause there is no gas on our street. Would this idea work? Would chunks of 1 1/4" granite be too heavy to mortar to a block face? Would the whole thing be dangerous with its weight, or the fact that it would be sitting up next to the deck? I could design it so that the actual fire box sits a couple feet back from the deck, with a "hearth" extending just to the edge of the deck and then maybe another foot of stone "hearth" actually sitting on the edge of the deck. (Minimize sparks hitting my wood deck. Any suggestions or ideas??? Thanks for reading my post.

You need something to hold moisture, which decomposed granite will not do. You can mix fine decomposed granite into regular potting mix to improve the drainage, but you need to be making a mix similar to "cactus mix" at least. Keep in mind that plants in containers need to be watered more often than the same plants would if they were planted in the ground.

Wash the granite with water and detergent. Rinse well, dry with cloth and let air dry completely. Then use a granite cleaner and/or granite polish. Read instructions, may not need to use both at same time. Granite cleaner and polish can be purchased at hardware stores or places like Lowes and Home Depot. For day to day cleaning I use 50/50 solution alcohol and water. Granite does not streak and looks great for a long time before needing granite cleaner or polish. Your table may not be faded, probably is dull. The granite cleaner and/or polish will bring back the shine if it was a polished granite to start with. Real granite is a natural stone from the earth and to my knowledge does not fade. The finish can become dull.

Try Soft Scrub with bleach. Wet the surface first then add some soft scrub and rub it in. Let it sit for a couple minutes and then wipe off and rinse with water. Let us know if it helps or if you already cleaned it, what did you use?