Design Ideas for Good Parterre Garden
A good parterre is about as stylized a piece of garden¬ing as you will ever find. It turns the surface of the gar¬den into a picture, a pattern complete in itself. In principle it is one of the simplest of garden styles, however complex the geometry of the pattern itself may actually be.
Knot gardens were a feature of seventeenth-century gardens and consisted of a square plot upon which lines of dwarf shrubs were interwoven to form a symmetrical pattern. The style developed, under French influence, into the parterres of the early eighteenth century. Here a larger area was divided with small hedges into all kinds of shapes, such as animals, crests, arabesques and leaves. The areas be¬tween the hedges were filled variously with grass, flowers, shrubs, or colored substances such as gravel, fluorspar, sand, coal, crushed brick and glass. Clipped evergreens were also used, in pots or in the ground, to add a further dimension to the patterns. Much later, in the mid-nineteenth century, the grand parterre was revived in England by designers such as Nesfield and Barry, and fountains were regularly used as the centerpieces.
The parterre may not be a style which will appeal to a keen plantsman, as the opportunities for growing a large range of plants are few. Its appeal lies instead in the precision of its lines, its contrasts of color and its relation to the adjoining architecture of the house.
A parterre will complement even the most modern of houses because it is a pure geometric design. The modern style of heather-and-conifer garden of the last twenty years is simply a form of arabesque parterre.
A parterre needs to be kept separate from the hurly-burly of a mixed flower garden so that its lines can be appreciated without distraction. An encircling hedge is often all that is required to do this. The Victorians loved to use a grand balustrade to mark the perimeter. With a hedge all round it, a small parterre garden could be made a part of a much larger garden at some distance from the house, but the symmetrical facade of a house is undoubtedly the best backdrop for this sophisticated style of gardening.
Dwarf box is the traditional hedging material for parterres, but yew, cotton lavender, berberis, ger¬mander and lavender can all be used. There is no reason at all to be limited to a traditional range of plants, either for hedging or for in-filling. The spaces between hedges could even be filled with water or pebbles instead of the usual bedding plants or bulbs. The same opportunities are offered in the use of modern hard-landscaping materials, producing a wealth of detail in the surface of the paths in a small-scale parterre. Modern sculpture or a modern fountain can be used instead of topiary specimens. Parterres are an unashamed contrivance, to be en¬joyed for their bold structure and artistry.
Tags: arabesques, century gardens, crushed brick, eighteenth century, flower garden, geometric design, knot gardens, leaves, mid nineteenth century, modern style, parterre, seventeenth century