The Cox ring of a Del Pezzo surface

Let $X_r$ be a smooth Del Pezzo surface obtained from $\P^2$ by blowing up $r \leq 8$ points in general position. It is well known that for $r \in \{3,4,5,6,7,8 \}$ the Picard group $\Pic(X_r)$ contains a canonical root system $R_r \in \{A_2 \times A_1, A_4, D_5, E_6, E_7, E_8 \}$. We prove some general properties of the Cox ring of $X_r$ ($r \geq 4$) and show its similarity to the homogeneous coordinate ring of the orbit of the highest weight vector in some irreducible representation of the algebraic group $G$ associated with the root system $R_r$.