. Gardens for small country houses. Gardens. 122 Gardens for Small Country Houses. size there would be columbines in quantity, white foxgloves and mulleins growing with splendid vigour and enjoying the cool root-run among the stones. The way the walls are put up is of the utmost importance, for on the way it is done depends not only the appearance but the stability. Dry walling made rightly may be carried up twelve feet or more, even in recently disturbed soil, while if wrongly or negligently done a wall only three feet high will come down with the first heavy storm of rain. The following desc
. Gardens for small country houses. Gardens. 122 Gardens for Small Country Houses. size there would be columbines in quantity, white foxgloves and mulleins growing with splendid vigour and enjoying the cool root-run among the stones. The way the walls are put up is of the utmost importance, for on the way it is done depends not only the appearance but the stability. Dry walling made rightly may be carried up twelve feet or more, even in recently disturbed soil, while if wrongly or negligently done a wall only three feet high will come down with the first heavy storm of rain. The following description will help those who wish to build their own walls, and to an intelligent amateur there is hardly a department of garden work that is more interesting and even delightful, especially where there is good local stone. Where there is no stone a dry wall can be built of brick, but this is duller work and is best done by a trained bricklayer. In some cases, in brick retaining walls a brick or half-brick is left out to give more space for inserting plants, or the whole is built in mortar, leaving such spaces only for planting ; but the earth joint throughout is rather more satisfactory, giving more freedom for the shaping of the groups. The wall should lie back a little—" batter back " is the technical word, derived, no doubt, as are so many of our words for tools and building, from the French. It. FIG. 157. -A TEN-FOOT WALL PLANTED WITH GYPSOPHILA, VALERIAN, SANTOLINA, CERASTIUM, LUPINES AND ROSEMARY AT TOP. ROCK PINKS AND suggests a near relationship to abattrc, to beat down or beat back. As a good general rule it may batter back in the proportion of one foot in six of height. Everj^"" stone, lying on its natural bed at right angles to the sloped-back face, has the back a little lower than the front. It follows that every drop of rain that falls on the face of the wall runs into the next joint, to the benefit of the plants. If a dry waU is built on sohd
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectgardens, bookyear1920
