Plants On The Move: Botanists, Collectors and Artists

The site at Versailles, in marshy ground, was inauspicious, but the canals, designed to be seen from the chateau, helped ensure adequate drainage. The entire formal framework was carved out of the forest, through which secondary allees were cut. Along these rides a variety of bosquets, set pieces decorated with fountains and statues, were carved out as "green" rooms for entertainments. There were 17 original bosquets. Facilities for banquets, fetes, theatre and dancing, all arranged as temporary "furnishings", were gradually replaced by more permanent constructions of fountains and basins, all much altered during the years up to 1713. One, the Labyrinthe, long since vanished, was designed by Le Notre between 1664 and 1667, then redesigned after 1669 to contain 39 fountains and statues from Aesop's fables. Another, the Bosquet Le Marais, suggested by the king's mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, contained a central tree surrounded by reeds, all made of metal, which spouted jets of water, some emerging from the tips of the branches. The elaborate waterworks were the king's pride. The water supply, however, was always short of requirements. A team of gardeners using whistles were needed to turn each fountain on and off as Louis made his royal progress. And the cost of bringing water to the park was vast. A monumental project for raising water 162m (520ft) up from the Seine involved 14 waterwheels, each 12m (40ft) in diameter, powered by a series of pumps.

The garden incorporated most, if not all, the planting ideas expounded by the Mollets — tall tightly clipped hornbeam hedges, used for palissades or berceaux, and elaborate parterres de broderie of box. Flowers were not neglected. Louis was passionate about them, encouraging botanizing explorers to bring back plants to be cultivated first in the Jardin du Roi (established in 1625 in Paris and later to become the Jardin des Plantes) or, if of doubtful hardiness, in Montpellier. In 1672, 10,000 tuberoses (Polianthes tuberosa), only introduced from Mexico in 1629, were grown in Provence and transported across the mountains in wagons to supply the gardens at Versailles. Louis insisted that Le NOtre should see that the gardens were stocked with flowers "even in winter". Other flowers, including bulbs from the Levant and more familiar plants from the Mediterranean, were planted in the box-edged beds of the Grand Trianon.