30 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



or two in a couple of courses, and to form a little Fern 

 cave for the delicate Filmy Ferns (Hymenophyllum), 

 and if the garden should be near the sea on our south 

 coast there would be a chance of success with the Sea 

 Spleenwort (Asplenium marinum) planted in a deep 

 joint. 



The delicately beautiful Cystopteris, in several kinds, 

 will be some of the best things in the wall, also the 

 dainty little Woodsias. The difficult Holly- Fern will 

 do well in a deep horizontal wall joint, and Parsley 

 Fern (Allosorus) will be contented with a cool cleft if 

 liberally fed with chips of slate. 



The wide family of Saxifrages will be largely re- 

 presented in the cool rock-wall. This is a group of 

 plants that presents so many different forms that it 

 is one of the most puzzling to amateurs, but it is much 

 simplified, if, putting aside some of its outlying 

 members, one thinks of it in its relation to the wall 

 as mainly of three kinds ; the London Pride, the 

 mossy, and the silvery or encrusted kinds. Every- 

 body knows London Pride (Saxifraga umbrosd) as 

 a pretty plant in garden edgings and for ordinary 

 rock-garden use, but I doubt if it is ever so charming 

 as when grown in the cool wall, when its dainty 

 clouds of pink bloom are seen puffing out from among 

 Fern-frond masses. Then, once seen, it is easy to 

 recognise the Mossy Saxifrages, of which S. hypnoides 

 of our northern mountains is the best known. Then 

 no one who has once seen any examples of the 

 silvery or encrusted Saxifrages, with their stiff, mostly 

 strap-shaped leaves bearing along their saw-like edges 



