A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all. French parterres were elaborated out of 16th-century knot gardens, and reached a climax at the Chateau of Versailles and its many European imitators.
The word comes from the French language where it is used in the same sense but also has several other meanings, for example, that part of the auditorium of a theatre which is occupied by the orchestra stalls.
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