The word ‘parterre’, meaning ‘on the ground’, refers to a type of decorative planting that evolved out of the 16th-century knot garden. It appeared in the 1570s in France, probably thanks to Claude Mollet, royal gardener par excellence to three French monarchs, including Louis XIV.

Today, after many ups and downs, the parterre and its Victorian descendant, the floral bedding display, are much-loved seasonal attractions at the English Heritage properties lucky enough to have them – and their preparation involves enormous amounts of planning and labour. ‘The earlier knot gardens were interweaving patterns, often intricate,’ explains Emily Parker, a landscape advisor at English Heritage. ‘But parterres were generally flat, cut into the ground, with a surrounding wall of low box and often filled with flowers.’

In a parterre, she adds, the beds were part of a geometrical and symmetrical whole, designed to be seen from above, so planted as near as possible to the house. Fashions in parterres came and went: French, English and cutwork (simple shapes in grass surrounded by gravel, with some sort of border but no flowers).

An expression of beliefs

Parterres were the very height of garden fashion for decades, but they weren’t without their critics. The English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon was huffing and puffing about their irritating complexity and ostentation very early on and, by the early 18th century, the horticultural tide was on the turn.

‘A parterre expressed cultural and political leanings,’ explains Michael Klemperer, senior gardens advisor (north). ‘It showed an affiliation with continental culture, and this became associated with the affectations of the ruling classes.’ In a highly politicised era, Whig and Tory grandees expressed their beliefs through their estates – and the Georgian mood was for Englishness, best demonstrated in the landscapes of ‘Capability’ Brown et al.

In private houses, this made enormous demands on garden staff. At Witley Court, says Weddell, the parterres changed four times a year and there was even a ‘Great Reveal’. ‘Guests would eat lunch in the dining room,’ he explains, ‘And when the blinds went up there would be a different planting scheme outside.’

The head gardeners of today may not have to pull off that sort of stunt, but the demands of the parterre are still colossal. Toby Beasley is head gardener at Osborne, where they work hard to recapture the planting style known to Victoria and Albert. ‘We have two changeovers a year,’ he says. ‘We dig out the plants, dig over the beds and start afresh. Five or six gardeners work for four to six weeks, and plant between 15,000 and 20,000 plants.’

They grow their own dot plants and buy in the smaller ones. ‘We try to plant with species available before Victoria’s death in 1901,’ he explains. ‘But so many 19th-century cultivars were variable in colour, size and quality and were not prolific. We use period-correct plants, where possible, and arrange them in that slightly woolly style they liked back then.’

The parterres at Wrest Park, unlike Osborne, are flat, with box hedging trimmed to between 10 and 30 cm high. Here, head gardener Andrew Luke has been working with his team to restore the original profile. ‘We take out the existing plants, then the bulbs,’ he says. ‘If we don’t, random things in the wrong colour pop up.’ They then level off the beds, adding organic matter to raise them to their 1830s shape. ‘You can’t do it quickly, so every year we add more,’ he says. ‘It’s a really expensive process. That’s why there are so few parterres and bedding displays left and why councils are getting rid of them.’

Perhaps this is why so many visitors love the sight of an English Heritage parterre in all its seasonal glory: it really is something special.