During the time of Peter the Great, there was an idea in the Summer Garden, which has not been preserved at the present time.

The composition of the Second Summer Garden consisted of the Fabulnaya Grove-Labyrinth and an orchard and ended with a Carp Pond. The green labyrinth is an obligatory idea in a regular garden, the most interesting undertaking of Peter I.

He saw the prototype of the idea at Versailles in 1717. It was a labyrinth, decorated with fountains with gilded lead groups on the themes of Aesop’s fables, with moralizing quatrains on the tablets. Many of these compositions formed the basis of the Summer Garden labyrinth.

He was a beautiful, symmetrical figure with a fountain in the center, selected from Darzhanville’s book “Theory and Practice of Horticulture” (Dezallir d’Argenville “La theorie et la pratique du jardinage”). It was arranged by the garden master Cornelius Schroeder in 1718. The broken lines of the paths lengthened the walking path, but the labyrinth was not designed to wander in it. The main effect, as in Versailles, was created by fountains on the themes of Aesop’s fables and other ancient authors, located in trellis niches. The themes of the fables were not chosen randomly. Only a part of them coincided with the Versailles.

The lead bowls of the pools were decorated with tuff and shells. The fountains with lead groups were designed by M. Zemtsov, the sculptural groups were cast by master F. Vassu with assistants.

During the lifetime of Peter the Great, 17 fountains with “plots” were made. There were thirty of them in total, the thirty-first was the central one – “Yabloshny”.

After the devastating flood of 1777, which caused great damage to this garden venture, the fountains of the Fabulnaya grove were dismantled, and the territory was planted with trees.

During the reconstruction of the Summer Garden, the plot grove was not restored.