The school was located in the “Potager du Roi” (the King's kitchen garden) in Versailles where the former Institut National Agronomique had been established in October 1848 at the end of the Second Republic.

[2] In October 1848 France's agricultural education was reformed through the creation of the Institut National Agronomique at Versailles specialising in the vegetable garden.

After 1866 many organisations vied for control of the school until in 1872 Pierre Joigneaux proposed l'École Nationale d'Horticulture (ENH), which was opened in 1874.

The school was now at the forefront of French horticulture and had developed an international reputation with alumni taking leading positions in botanical gardens and farms worldwide.

In 1961, the ENH awarded a diploma of horticultural engineer and became a National College recruiting students who had already completed their higher education and were seeing more theoretical and modern research.

[3][4] The Institut National d'Horticulture et de Paysage (National Institute for Horticulture and Landscape Management) was established in 1997 as a merger of two grandes écoles, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Horticulture (ENSH) at Versailles and the Ecole Nationale des Ingénieurs de l'Horticulture et du Paysage (ENITHP) at Angers.

It was created in 1971 by merging the Institut national agronomique (Paris) and the École nationale supérieure d'Agronomie de Grignon, thus having a history that goes back to 1826.]