Part I. 



RUIN AND WALL GARDENS. 



37 



By building a rough stone wall, and packing the intervals as 

 firmly as possible with loam and sandy peat, and putting, perhaps, 

 a little mortar on the outside of the largest interstices, a host of 

 brilliant gems may be grown with almost as little attention as 

 we bestow on the common Ivy. Thoroughly consolidated, the 

 materials of the wall would afford precisely the kind of nutriment 

 required by the plants. The wall would prove a more congenial 

 home to many species than any but the best constructed rock- 

 garden. In many parts of the country the rains would keep the 

 walls in a sufficiently moist condition, the top being always left 

 somewhat concave ; in dry districts a perforated copper pipe laid 

 along the top will diffuse the requisite moisture. In very moist 

 places natives of wet rocks and trailing plants like the Linnaa, 

 might be interspersed here and there among the other alpines ; 



4 '-iif fi^irsssBPt*"®*^' 



Fig. 32. — A rude stone wall covered with alpine plants. 



in dry ones it would be desirable to plant chiefly the Saxifragas, 

 Sedums, small Campanulas, Linarias, and subjects that, even in 

 hotter countries than ours, find a home on the sunniest and 

 barest crags. The chief care in the management of this wall of 

 alpine flowers would be in preventing weeds or coarse plants from 

 taking root and overrunning the choice gems. When these are 

 once observed, they can be easily prevented from making any 

 further progress by continually cutting off their shoots as they 

 appear ; it would never be necessary to disturb the wall even in 

 the case of a thriving Convolvulus. The wall of alpine plants may 

 be placed in any convenient position in or near the garden : 

 there is no reason why a portion of the walls usually devoted to 

 climbers should not be prepared as I describe. The boundary 

 walls of multitudes of small gardens would look better graced by 

 alpine flowers than bare as they usually are. However, once it 

 is generally known that the very walls may be jewelled with this 



