90 THE WILD GARDEN. 
almost imperceptible chink in an arid rock or boulder. They 
are often stunted and diminutive in such places, but always 
more long-lived than when grown vigorously upon the 
ground. Now, numbers of alpine plants perish if planted in 
the ordinary soil of our gardens, and many do so where much 
pains is taken to attend to their wants. This results from 
over-moisture at the root in winter, the plant being rendered 
more susceptible of injury by our moist green winters 
inducing it to make a lingering growth. But it is interesting 
and useful to know that, by placing many of these delicate 
plants where their roots can secure a comparatively dry and 
well-drained medium, they remain in perfect health. Many 
plants from latitudes a little farther south than our own, and 
from alpine regions, may find on walls, rocks, and ruins, that 
dwarf, ripe, sturdy growth, stony firmness of root medium, and 
dryness in winter, which go to form the very conditions that 
will grow them in a climate entirely different from their own. 
In many parts of the country it may be said with truth 
that opportunities for this phase of gardening do not exist; but 
in various districts, such as the Wye and other valleys, there 
are miles of rock and rough wall-surface, where the scattering 
of a few pinches of Arabis, Aubrietia, Erinus, Acanthus, 
Saxifrage, Violas, Stonecrops, and Houseleeks, would give rise 
to a garden of rock blossoms that would need no care from 
the gardener. Growing such splendid alpine plants as the 
true Saxifraga longifolia of the Pyrenees on the straight sur- 
face of a wall is quite practicable. I have seen the rarest 
and largest of the silvery section grown well on the face of a 
dry wall: therefore there need be no doubt as to growing the 
more common and hardy kinds. 
