Retaining Walls and Their Planting. 121 



is of some size and height, for a number of our best garden plants. Then the fact of 

 the plants being raised some feet above the ground brings them into the most convenient 

 range of sight. Some lovely little alpines at easy eye-level can be much more 

 comfortably and leisurely examined than in the ordinary rock garden ; all their little 

 beauties of form, colour and scent can be enjoyed and appreciated to the full. 

 Many of them grow naturally in rocky clefts, hanging down in sheets of loveliness, 

 so that the wall shows, in a better way than any other kind of gardening, the real 

 habit and character of the plant -its own method of growing, enjoying life and 

 displaying beauty. 



In the case of such planted walls it is best to have no flower-border at the foot, 

 but to have a border above, occupying, in the case of a converted grass bank, what 

 would represent the upper half of the bank. It is well to fill it with a good proportion 

 of things of bushy habit, such as bush roses, Scotch briars, lavender, rosemary, olearias, 

 phlomis and so on. In this way the border forms a protecting parapet, while the whole 

 wall-face is free for use. It also allows of combining the upper planting with that 

 of the wall in a way that always proves satisfactory ; some of the plants of the top 

 being also placed in the upper joints. But in a garden where there are many planted 

 walls monotony of treatment is avoided by having in some part rambling roses at the 

 top to tumble over, with a thinner growth of tea roses at the foot, and but little 

 planted in the wall- joints. 



As in arranging flower-borders, it is well to place the plants in groups of a fair 

 quantity of one thing at a time ; and, in the case of small plants, such as thrift or 

 London Pride, to put them fairly close together. If they are spaced apart at even 

 distances they look like buttons ; but even when this has been done, either 

 inadvertently or by an unpractised hand, it is easily remedied by adding a few plants 

 to make the group hang together. Though it is advised that there should be no 

 border at the foot of a planted dry wall, yet it looks well to have its junction with 

 the grass or gravel broken here and there by some plant that enjoys such a place, 

 as, for example, Iris stylosa or Plumbago larpentce in a sunny aspect, or hardy ferns 

 and Welsh poppy and small pansies in a shady one. It is well also to make careful 

 combinations of colour, for they not only give the prettiest pictures, but also that 

 restful feeling of some one idea completely presented that is so desirable, so easy to 

 accomplish, and yet so rarely seen in gardens. As an example, on a sunny wall there 

 may be a colour-scheme of grey with purple of various shades, white and pale pink, 

 composed of dwarf lavender, nepeta, aubrietia, cerastium, Helianthemums of the kinds 

 that have grey leaves and white and pale pink bloom, rock pinks, stachys, the dwarf 

 artemisias and Achillea umbellata, and in the border above, yuccas, lavender, 

 rosemary, the larger euphorbias, China roses, phlomis and santolina with white and 

 pink snapdragons. Phlomis and santolina both have yellow flowers, but a slight 

 break of yellow would harm the effect but little during their time of bloom, while 

 both are of year-long value for their good grey foliage ; moreover, it is easy to remove 

 the santolina bloom, which comes on shoots that are quite separate from the foliage. 

 If it were quite a high wall, larger plants could be used, especially in the upper half. 

 Yuccas are grand coming out of rocky chinks high up, and gypsophila in great clouds, 

 and centranthus (the red valerian) in big bushy masses. 



On a shady wall there would be a preponderance of good greenery of hardy 

 ferns, male fern and hart's- tongue, with the smaller ferns, woodsia, cheilanthes, 

 adiantum and allosorus, with Welsh poppies, corydalis, mimulus and the smaller 

 alpine bell-flowers, such as the lovely little Campanula pusilla, both blue and white, 

 and the rather larger carpatica and eriocarpa. Then if the shady wall was of good 



