Parterre planting design

A parterre is an area of flat land, usually rectangular and on a terrace near a house, laid out in decorative pattern using plants and gravels. The word parterre is from the French par=on + terre=ground). Elaborate pattern books for the design of parterres were published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A parterre is more complex than a knot garden.

See also: history of planting design.