Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



119 



CHAPTER XIL—RETAINING WALLS AND THEIR PLANTING. 



Hillside Sites — Turf Banks — Dry Walling — Grouping in Planted Dry Walls in Sun 

 and Shade — Construction — Importance of Ramming — Steps. 



M 



ANY gardens that are on hillsides are of necessity arranged in a succession 

 of terraces needing retaining walls to support each succeeding level. In 

 the case of gardens made fifty years ago, before better influences prevailed, 

 the difficulty was got over by making turf banks. But it is very rarely that a turf 

 bank is a desirable feature in a garden ; more often it is distinctly ugly, or, at the best, 

 quite uninteresting, while it is always difficult to mow and burns badly if on a 

 southern slope. Where such a turf bank remains, it would, in nearly every case, 

 be better to convert it into a wall ; the line of the wall being taken at halfway down 

 the slope and carried to the lower level, the earth excavated at the bottom filling up 

 above. When this is done space is gained both above and below, while the wall itself 

 becomes precious gardening ground ; for if built as a " dry wall," that is to say, with 

 earth joints instead of mortar, the joints, and the chinks in the case of uneven stones, 

 are the happiest possible places for the growing of nearly all alpines, or if the wall 



FIG. 155. — THIN SLATE STONES LAID LEVEL. 



