CHAPTER IV 



THE ROCK-WALL IN SHADE 



A DRY wall with a northern or eastern exposure offers 

 just as free a field for beautiful planting as one that 

 looks towards the sun, and it may be assumed that 

 quite two-thirds of the plants advised for the sunny 

 wall will flower and do well in the cooler one also, 

 while this will have other features distinctly its own. 

 For whereas on the sunny side many South European 

 species, and members of the sun-loving succulent 

 families, will find a suitable home, the cool wall will 

 present a series of garden-pictures almost equal in 

 number though dissimilar in character. 



What will be most conspicuous in the cool wall will 

 be a luxuriant growth of hardy Ferns, both native and 

 exotic ; indeed the main character of its furnishing will 

 be cool greenery in handsome masses, though flowers 

 will be in fair proportion. Here again, if the wall- 

 garden is to be seen at its best, and if the plants are to 

 be shown as well as possible, it will not do to throw 

 together one each of a quantity of kinds, but a fair 

 number of two or three kinds at a time should be 

 arranged in a kind of ordered informality. No actual 

 recipe or instructions can be given for such planting, 



though somewhat of the spirit of it may be appre- 



28 



