70 THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL 



many sorts of plants needing but little water. Care 

 should be taken in watering until the plants are 

 firmly established or the soil will be washed away. 

 A light but very frequent spraying should be the 

 program. While building, the soil should be kept 

 rather wet and packed, and after each watering look 

 over the wall and fill all chinks and cracks where 

 soil has washed away or settled from surface. The 

 common cobbles or boulders are the very poorest of 

 all material for such work. Quarried or slab stone 

 is best, and if it is soft and porous so it will hold 

 water and grow mossy, the effect will be much more 

 pleasing than with hard, impervious rock. This 

 class of work would add a pleasing variety to many 

 gardens. 



A FINE WALL PLANT 



Growers of cacti and other succulents suitable for 

 rock gardens admire one of the large stone crops 

 (Sedum spectabile) which is handsome in foliage 

 and produces large trusses of fine pink flowers 

 throughout a very considerable portion of the year. 

 For the driest situations and poorest soils it has 

 much to commend it, for under circumstances and 

 conditions necessarily fatal to most plants it thrives 

 marvelously. Given heavy, rich soil with plenty of 

 water, it runs all to vegetative growth, produces no 

 flowers and often rots away in the roots. Even then 

 the tops readily root and soon blossom if left lying 

 on dry soil. 



