WILD GARDENING ON WALLS OR RUINS. 89 
at Oxford, many Stonecrops and allied plants, the Aubrietia 
and Arabis. 
A most interesting example of wall gardening is shown 
on the opposite page. In the gardens at Great Tew, 
in Oxfordshire, this exquisite little alpine plant, which 
usually roots over the moist surface of stones, established 
itself high up on a wall in a small recess, where half a brick 
had been displaced. The illustration tells the rest. It is 
Cheddar Pink, Saxifrage, and Ferns, on cottage wall at Mells. 
suggestive, as so many things are, of the numerous plants 
that may be grown on walls and such unpromising surfaces. 
A mossy old wall, or an old ruin, would afford a position 
for many rock-plants which no specially prepared situation 
could rival; but even on well-preserved walls we can 
establish some little beauties, which year after year will 
abundantly repay for the slight trouble of planting or sowing 
them. Those who have observed how dwarf plants grow on 
the tops of mountains, or on elevated stony ground, must 
have seen in what unpromising positions many flourish in 
perfect health—fine tufts sometimes springing from an 
