4 o 



Gardening for Amateurs 



steps are laid throughout in mortar, the 

 treads must incline to the front, so that 

 water can run off at once, 



Informal Stone Steps. The most pic- 

 turesque and most useful material for in- 

 formal garden steps consists of rejected 

 paving stones, that can often be obtained 

 cheaply, in towns and suburbs, from a 

 builder's yard. They are usually 2 or 3 

 inches thick, and if cut into widths of 18 

 inches, form an admirable upper course, or 

 " tread," while the waste pieces will be 

 suitable for the second course. The latter 

 should be bedded in mortar in a similar 

 manner as advised for bricks, arranging soil 

 joints as before into which plants are intro- 



Stone stairway in an old garden. 



duced and filling with soil before the upper 

 course forming the " treads " is placed in 

 position. The treads should again project 

 1| inches ; if the joints are left f inch wide 

 and filled with soil, small pieces of plants 

 may be put in, or seed may be sown. The 

 lower course of the second step rests upon 

 the back edge of the stones forming the 

 first " tread," and each subsequent step is 

 built up in this manner, so that when the 

 stairway is finished, provided the ground 

 has been carefully firmed as the work pro- 

 ceeds, it is practically immovable, and never 

 likely to subside. The soil used in step 

 building should be of a light and porous 

 nature ; ordinary garden soil of this char- 

 acter is quite suitable, but 

 if heavy, clayey stuff, add 

 sand, mortar rubble, or 

 crushed chalk in sufficient 

 quantity to make it quite 

 gritty. Steps of this charac- 

 ter are not suited to the 

 rock garden. There the 

 boulders or rocks them- 

 selves should form the 

 steps, an arrangement that 

 is best provided for while 

 the rock garden is under 

 construction. 



Plants for Step Crev- 

 ices. Only quite low- 

 growing plants are suitable 

 for furnishing the step 

 " treads." One of the best 

 for this work is Thyme 

 (Thymus Serphyllum), as ifc 

 bears treading upon, and 

 when lightly bruised in this 

 way it fills the air with its 

 delicate aroma. There are 

 numerous varieties namely, 

 alba, coccinea, lanuginosa, 

 carnosula, and villosa. 

 Other suitable creeping 

 plants are Arenaria balea- 

 rica, Mentha Requieni (with 

 Peppermint-like scent), Hy- 

 pericum repens, Potentilla 

 ambigua, Dryas octopetala, 

 Alyssum montanum, and 

 Artemisia brachyphylla 

 splendens. Plants of more 



