Walls, Steps, and Fences: Add a Wall FountainGARDENS ARE BUILT not only of shrubs, flowers, and grass, a deal of masonry or wood construction goes into their making. These structural elements give sharpness of line and provide a welcome contrast to the billowiness of foliage. This is particularly true in any garden that has any formal wall or architectural quality. Of course the wild, natural landscape design has nothing of this sort, and so the very informal development will not have much of it either. But in most schemes the wall is an important component part. Planting with dwarf creeping plants and mosses up the wall become quite inconspicuous. To compliment your wall garden, use logs 6 to 8 inches in diameter, strip off the bark, and coat with creosote. Let the logs be about a foot longer than the desired width of the wall so that the ends may be buried in the bank to prevent the soil from being washed down around the ends and onto the treads. The width of the wall may vary from one to several feet, but the height of the wall, controlled by the size of the log, should remain from 6 to 8 feet. Mount a wall fountain on the wall. Narrow logs, of course, are level, but very wide ones may slope the wall gradually upward. This produces a more pleasing-looking backdrop for wall fountains, and reduces the necessary number of accent pieces. Sometimes sections several feet wide occur in walls of this sort. Obviously a height of several feet can accommodate larger outdoor wall fountains, which can mount with standard hardware. For similar situations, and for rock gardens, large, flat field stones, if available, can be used with good results. These need not be flat on all sides, but should have at least one good flat surface for the top, with sides sufficiently regular to make it possible to fit the stones closely together to prevent soil washing down the wall. In laying up either of these sorts of walls, begin at the bottom and build toward the top, varying the width of the wall with the steepness of the slope so that you come out right at the top without having the flight of steps either buried in a sort of ravine, or built up on a ridge. The walls need not be uniform in depth, although continual change makes the wall less pleasing to lok at. If the wall is too short to make a uniform appearance, it is best to break the wall up with garden wall decor, or the previously mentioned garden wall fountain. |
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