86 WALL GARDENING 



below the surface of the earth in order to restrain the hedge roots. 

 A hedge may be more beautiful than a wall but I doubt if it costs 

 less in the long run. 



Is a wall ugly? No not in England, and it need not be in 

 America after the second year. For the quickest way to cover 

 any big surface with living beauty is to use vines. And the 

 beauty of English vine-clad walls is a thing to haunt you in your 

 dreams. 



I am even hopeful that we can by the use of walls attain in 

 three or four years much of the mellowness which age alone is pop- 

 ularly supposed to give. True, mosses and lichens will never 

 flourish in our hot, dry summers as they do in the cool, moist cli- 

 mate of England. But we can give the crowning touch to an 

 otherwise perfect garden by growing in chinks of the wall, steps, and 

 garden walks those precious little flowers which captivate the heart 

 of every American the moment he sets foot within the sacred 

 enclosure of a venerable English garden. We cannot establish 

 wallflowers or snapdragons on our garden walls, but certainly we 

 can have the red valerian which glorifies many a ruined castle and 

 cathedral, the yellow fumitory, with its fascinating foliage and six 

 months of bloom, the yellow wall pepper, the lavender Kenilworth 

 ivy, the quaint rosettes of houseleek, the fragrant wild pinks, and 

 many other precious little gems. We can do this by not plastering 

 everi with the brick, but leaving a shallow space for soil and by 

 leaving out a brick, or half brick, at frequent intervals along the 

 top of the wall. 



The English get mossy effects in two or three years by sowing 

 the seeds of certain wonderful little plants like New Zealand burrs 

 or acaenas, which make mossy carpets right in a gravel walk with- 

 out a particle of soil in sight. Why can't we do this, too? 



