ROCK-GARDEN CONSTRUCTION 13 



matured and everything at hand as the wall goes up, 

 it is much best to plant as the stones are laid. The 

 roots can then be laid well out, and larger plants can 

 be used than if they were to be put in when the wall 

 is completed. 



In making the steps that go with such dry-walling 

 it will not be necessary that they should be entirely 

 paved with stones. If the front edge is carefully fitted 

 and fixed the rest can be levelled up with earth and 

 the sides and angles planted with bits of Mossy Saxi- 

 frages or other small growths. This is also a capital 

 way of making steps in steep wood paths. In such 

 places the use of thick wooden slab as an edging is a 

 much worse expedient, for in wet or wintry weather it 

 becomes extremely slippery and dangerous. 



The steps themselves will become fiower gardens ; 

 only the front edges need be cemented ; indeed, if the 

 stones are large and heavy enough to be quite firm 

 there need be no cement ; but if two or three stones 

 are used to form the edge of a four-foot-wide step it is 

 just as well to make a cement joint to fix the whole 

 firmly together. This fixing need not be made to 

 show as a conspicuous artificial joint; it can be kept 

 well down between the stones, and spaces left above 

 and below to form many a little nook where a tiny 

 Fern may be planted or a little tuft of some other 

 small plant — any plant that one may most wish to see 

 there. If the space is cool and shady the little 

 Saxifraga Cymbalaria is a charming thing. It is an 

 annual, but always grows again self-sown ; in the 

 depth of winter its cheerful tufts of little bluntly-lobed 



