People Are Ridiculing Melania Trump’s White House Rose Garden Renovation With Savage Tweets
Ever since 1961, when President Kennedy came up with the idea to design the Rose Garden at the west end of the White House, the garden has become an icon by itself.
Designed by the gardener Rachel Lambert Mellon, it has been home to a colorful selection of magnolias, cherry trees, roses, tulips, and other botanical beauties. Both harmonious and subtle, it has framed the view toward the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office and reflected every changing pattern of American history.
But on Saturday, the First Lady unveiled her Rose Garden remake that was meant to bring the space to its original roots. But the redesign received strong backlash on social media with people being far from impressed with the results. The internet dubbed Melania’s makeover “#RoseGardenMassacre,” comparing the result to a lifeless "parking lot." The hashtag is now trending and people have a lot to say about it.
After you're done reading this one, check out our new article on the gardener who stepped in to defend Melania's redesign.
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The iconic Rose Garden came to being after President Kennedy and the first lady returned from a state visit to France. In the summer of 1961, they visited the gardener Rachel Lambert Mellon and invited her to bring the space back to life.
In a piece written for the White House Historical Association in the early 1980s, Mellon revealed that “Kennedy noted that the White House had no garden equal in quality or attractiveness to the gardens that he had seen and in which he had been entertained in Europe. There he had recognized the importance of gardens surrounding an official residence and their appeal to the sensibilities of all people.”
The garden was begun in the spring of 1962 and finished at the end of the same year. Most importantly, its creator said that “It was truly President Kennedy’s garden” and he always showed how much he cared about it.
This! What the heck is with her dark depressing style of decorating?
Every time I look at pictures of the ruined—-sorry—-“renovated” Rose Garden, my first thought is “Where TF are the roses”? Then again, we must remember her rows of red “Handmaiden” Christmas trees. A woman of little taste and imagination—-of course, look who she married. Unless drumpf has a meltdown tantrum from sensory overload when he sees too many colors all at once.
And removing old growth trees and roses put in by past First Ladies (who actually were ladies) is unconscionable.
That Melania Trump took on a task so clearly associated with the Kennedys doesn’t come as a surprise, since President Trump told Fox & Friends that “We have our own Jackie O. It’s called Melania, Melania T.”
Today, the flowers in the garden are largely pastels chosen according to the tastes of the first lady, including taller white roses, which were in honor of the first papal visit to the White House by Pope John Paul II in 1979. The most obvious change to the garden was the addition of a 3-foot-wide limestone walking path bordering the central lawn.
But after the first lady tweeted the first images from her renovation, the new Rose Garden received many mixed reactions.
"Soul? We don't need soul! Color? We don't need color!"... and that sums up the Trumps IMHO
In all fairness... even Trump's own sister thinks he's a piece of turd.
Trump: "It was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe." What a delusional egomaniacal moron.
Because they would’ve preferred Nixon over Kennedy. But even Pat Nixon knew better than to cut down Jackie’s trees!
Goli soda, nobody needs that pro-trump negativity today. Thanks.
She could go into cemetery landscaping—-since she’ll have to find a job when drumpf goes to prison and all his assets are RICO’d. And she’s now too old for the “modeling” she used to do.
All white. Like he envisions the US—-a country built by diverse groups of immigrants. Including his ancestors, and his wife.
Well, what TF does the drumpf family know about a kitchen garden? They don’t even know where the kitchen is.
Puleeease... we are not her (or his) citizens. We are citizens of the US who made a bad choice and are now paying for it.
Once they’re gone, the next First Lady will need to replace the trees with seedlings grown from cuttings of the originals. Thing is, it’ll take 60 years to get them to where they were before she cut them down.
Grass and pavement. The two most ecologically destructive landscaping features.
Yes! She cut down—-murdered—-old growth trees planted 60 years ago!
Goli Soda, why bitch about the Obamas? Barack isn't currently in office. Instead we have a orange sociopath and his gold digging wife.
“Empty and bleak like her husband’s presidency”. And our lives for the last 3 years, 7 months. Vote BLUE and we could see a light at the end of a very dark, dank, stinking tunnel.
Completely misses the point of a garden... she has made it no more than landscaping for a walkway.
Well, the fact of it being historical means you leave it the fuck alone. Maintain it, don’t level it.
Oh, she’s probably spinning her way out of her grave. Hope she haunts Melania.
Even a cemetery can look more inviting. Hell, she didn’t even put in any statuary to break up the monotony—-though I shudder to think of what kind of statues she’d pick.
I am really getting tired of entertainers bitching about homelessness and hunger in the US but will instead rally for support for other countries. Don't get me wrong, I know there are needy people across the globe. My problem is that they will point fingers at people they don't like and accuse them of not helping the problem yet they refuse to help as well. If you don't fix your backyard, you have no business fixing others' backyards.
There were roses there planted by more than a century of First Ladies. This wasn't a renovation or a restoration. It was an erasure
Note: this post originally had 79 images. It’s been shortened to the top 51 images based on user votes.
My grandparents had a beautiful flowering dogwood tree in their front yard. They are iconic in the city where they lived (Quincy, IL). After my grandpa died, my grandma sold the house and moved to Florida. The first thing the new owners did was cut down the dogwood. This reminds me of that. They probably tore out my grandpa's roses as well. I don't know. We couldn't stand to drive by any more after that.
I have no problem with people having an opinion, but they should at least get their facts straight. The rose garden has had the so called "central lawn" since it's redesign by Rachel Lambert Mellon in 1961. So no real change there. (Just carefully and deceptively cropped photos.) Those weren't cherry trees. They were crabapples. And the sidewalks were required by the ADA, which, yes, even the White House has to follow. So in summary: same layout, old crabapples removed, federally required sidewalks installed. Grrrr, the outrage.
Still looks hideous...even with the "facts straight".....and yes, having it go from soulful, bright and full of color to....this......YES grrrrrr....the outrage is right.
It won't have full color all year round. The roses have been pruned.
It is also the season. The tulips come in spring, the roses in summer. Who's to say the tulips are not still in the ground, returning next spring? also the trees were dug up, not cut down, they will be replanted.
I truly wish my life was so untroubled that I had it in me to be "outraged" over someone else's gardening taste being different than mine.
Aria - FULL COLOR? Have you seen tulips when not in bloom? Have you seen that same angle pic in fall and winter , spring for that matter. All the maintenance of removing the dead flowers - weeding, spraying, replanting. Melania has brought practical elegance to the white house. Not a goobly gook hodge podge of flowers!
Kristin Urmston -
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At least it has flowers, tulips look good for 1 week per year, cherry trees are the same.
Careful Taibhse, you are using logic and reasoning. People on this social platform don't often take kindly to those things when they refute what they want to see and hear.
The funniest thing to me about this whole "debate" is that the left is obviously using prepared talking points from the same source. They may have gotten them second or third hand, but they all originated from the same source. How do I know that, you ask? Because whoever prepared the talking points got a number of things wrong resulting in all the people using them getting the exact same things wrong the exact same way using the exact same deceptively cropped photos! Who knows, maybe this is part of that Chinese collusion that was briefly reported then spiked a couple weeks ago. The American people deserve an investigation of Biden/Chinese collusion!
to be ada compliant all that had to be done was to add the walkways. it wasn't necessary to tear it apart.
It was ADA compliant before this renovation. I was there.
@XianJaguar Yes it is a waste of water when none is needed in the first place. I very much know the nature of crabapple trees as there were several in our yard where I grew up. One of my daily chores in the late summer/fall was to collect all the fallen apples. No water required; just bend over and pick them up. Don't even get me started on leaf blowers.
Patti: Once you add the walkways, you HAVE to cut down the crabapple trees! I live in an area where there are lots of them. They are MESSY. They get bumpy sticky fruit all over the sidewalk, and that makes it hard for wheel-chair bound people to get around. It also makes the sidewalks NOT ADA compliant. And the trees are messy enough that a cleaning crew would have to be out there constantly hosing down the sidewalks....what a waste of water! I wish people knew about the nature of crabapple trees, and how much hell they put on wheel-chair bound people, or anyone using a walker. Not everyone is able-bodied!
XianJaguar good
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But then you Trump Derangement Syndrome folks would be "outraged" at this "foreigner" "destroying" the "history" of the central lawn.
Except there's no banks of actual FLOWERS anymore.
Once again gets the facts straight. Late August is not exactly "peak bloom" for flowers in DC. They'll look just fine in the spring. And the stated goal of the project was to update the Rose Garden to be more in line with Jackie Kennedy's original vision and plan. So if you don't like it then you're hating Jackie, not Melania. (oops) Hate-filled liberals really need to grow up.
Hi! Have you been ther e in summer! I have! IT WAS LOVELY IN THAT GARDEN AND COLORFUL. In AUgust. As in April. As in October. I don't give a crap for who did what. It celebrated color and diversity, and now it doesn't. So I'm not "hate-filled liberal". I'm a fed-up conservative.
It's ugly. The flowering trees and colorful flowers were the life of it, not to mention the history.
They only look good for 1 week a year. At least now there are longer flowering plants.
The before picture is full of tulips, which don't bloom long and can always be replaced. But needlessly cutting down a row of mature trees? Who does that??
They didn't "cut down" the trees. They dug them up to be re-planted elsewhere. Sheesh people.
People who don't want the trees smack up against a beautiful building. The trees were not cut down the are in the green house storage probably to be planted somewhere else. A better location for the trees themselves.
A lot of the comments I've read show a lack of public gardening knowledge. For example, in public gardens, tulips are treated as annuals and new bulbs are planted every year. After they're done blooming in spring, they're dug up, thrown away, and replaced with summer annuals. D.C. is warm enough to have winter annuals such as pansies and flowering kale.
Tulips grown in residential gardens last only a few seasons before they quit blooming. That is, if they survive being munched on by chipmunks and rabbits. I gave up tulips in favor of daffodils and narcissuses because they're poisonous to wildlife and they reproduce.
As Lynn Anderson would say, “I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden.”
The trees were crabapple trees and were blocking the sun from the flowers (roses) that depend on large amounts of light. The trees were transplanted elsewhere. The sidewalks were uneven and lopsided. The roses have been deadheaded (pruned) so that they may continue to grow.
And the bulbs have been removed so there's nary a crocus nor tulip to be found.
I rarely see tulips in august
Joe Blowe follower
Frankly, a few of these postings make fun of Trump (and Melania). This is fine. Many over-dramatically play the "I am oooof sooo offended" card. A garden re-design typically means removing stuff. Whether you like the new garden or not is a matter of personal choice. Interestingly, those people who are offended most probably do what helps Trump the most: taking unimportant topics as this as a decoy to get people wondering about the real issues.
I agree, this is a personal choice and you either like it or you don't. There are enough things to get outraged about atm without getting upset about a garden.
Some of the original planting were poorly chosen to begin with and were moved to other parts of the property. Roses flourish in full sunlight, not under crabapple trees. Tulips must be replanted often. These plants also have an lifespan. Crabapple trees live up to 70 years. This renovation was also performed with private contributions.
Good points, Hans. Some of these images are upsetting to me, but I've definitely got my mind focused on the real issues. I do know that Trump is the master of deflection, and luckily, most of us are aware of that.
it's not that people are upset about the garden, it's the backstory and the meaning behind the garden that was scrapped that people are mad about. there was an actual meaning to the garden, now it's just grey and bland. people are not mad because she wanted to do a redesign, people are mad because of what she wanted to get rid of in her redesign. and people are worried about the real issues, but the ones that do worry can't do anything about it because they are lower class and have no power over the situation they are in. protesting have proven very little help, and trying to do little things like helping the tree population or trying to recycle to cut back on trash in the ocean will only do so much, especially when the people higher in power can just break down all of that hard work easily. at this point we can't do much but hope that with enough complaints, they will get off their fat rear ends and do something about anything.
Let them do this to their own private property. Many of us revere Jacquie Kennedy and her garden was beautiful. There was no reason to change it.
Hope people understand the trees are in the greenhouse and not destroyed. And the rose bloom in May not August. So give it a season an see how it looks. Also it's nice there is pathways for disabled folks to use. Everyone hates on her for just trying to do a nice thing.
We have roses blooming now, and I'm a crap gardener. And the trees are already shedding their leaves here
why? it's hideous and boring. it looks like every travel way in California, seriously they all look like this.
I just read more into this and this is what I found. Every administration has done some sort of change to the garden, it is pretty much expected. The recent changes include better drainage system for healthier plants, and for the first time, access for the physically impaired. The crabapple trees which were removed were replanted elsewhere on the property. Melania does prefer pastel colors so the scheme may not be as vibrant as prior, but it is worth noting that most of the flowers were just planted, and anyone who knows anything about flowers knows that it takes tome for the plants root systems to take hold, and only after that will it fully bloom. Furthermore, the before pictures were taken in spring (tulips bloom only in spring), which adds a tremendous amounof color which wouldn't be showing now
I do not like the Trumps. I am simply pointing out how blinded people have willingly become. You can see only want you allow yourself to see.
I was just going to comment on the trees. Yes they were removed for reconditioning and being replanted on the WH lawn.
The tulips and trees were a mess, now the columns and the building look way better, why hide them? And no, I do not like Trump, or his wife, but this garden is simply modern, and not half bad.
I've seen the old version only in photos on this page - but that did look like the typical amateur garden: just plant what ever you can find at a discount in the local garden center. I guess there were emotional and historical values with the old one. But this new version fits the location better. The White house is not a friendly, cuddly place. One of the places where the world's future is decided. This new garden echoes that nicely.
No, it's merely half gone. BTW, the trees and tulips were not a mess to *many* people, and offered havens for pollinating insects, energy-saving shade, y'know, stuff like that.
Tulips bloom for about 2 weeks here in early spring. We have no idea what this garden will look like at that time, so there is no way to compare them yet. Roses don't bloom well underneath shade trees.
@BG, the garden wasn't just roses, it wasn't all roses, it was a diverse garden, and we already know from PR releases that the "uptight 1700s British estate" look did not allow for keeping quite a lot of the bulbs that bloomed from early spring to late fall. Instead of color all the time.... hedge-trimming.
Yes, I do think sidewalks were needed for the disabled, but even then, why have the sidewalks if there isn't any color to look at??
Oh good. Just what we all needed. A whole article of negativity. Because we don't already see enough of that.
I like it
I dislike Trump as much as the next person, but not only does the sidewalk make the garden more accessible to folks in wheelchairs, those flower bulbs in the first colorful photo bloom in March. It's currently August. Be careful you're not also downsizing the importance of accessibility in the name of dissing Trump.
with a lot of news and coverage of the white house, I have still yet to see all the wheelchairs lined up to roll out into the gardens ... just how many handicapped people are there these days, visiting the white house - after all, most of the tours have been stopped, there is razor-wire and hurricane fences around it all, and with tourists from around the world being warned off visiting the US in the first place ... I guess even the handicapped need and want to see a Plague Memorial at some point
ITS an ADA compliance LAW !! has nothing to do with the trumps. some peoples silliness. FOR NONE ARE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO SEE.
lu mars what
Everyone offended by the new look... don't visit any formal Italian gardens. you'll be massively offended.
Mimi what
Bored Panda, is my favorite program, I like to make comments, however, I have never felt so miserable, and left nasty comments, but true to my feelings, I look forward, in time to hear about, positive changes to the garden, take a deep breath, hope for better !!!
I’d be fine with it as long as they kept the spirit of Jackie’s garden. I don’t think it’d be hard to find volunteers or even hire someone to keep maintenance on the sidewalks and the crabapple trees. Sure, Melania may have met the ADA’s requirements, but in a way that undermined the importance and beauty of the original garden.
Since Biden is going to be President, I hope he and his wife will be able to re-plant everything the Trumps tore down. Maybe it won't be easy, but no great feat ever is.
i think Ms.Melania has a great taste in fashion. Her dresses are beautiful, for the most part. As much as i hate this new garden, as long as she likes it who am i to judge? Doesnt mean this is one of the most hideous things i have ever seen. Could b uglier than my backyard, which is nothing but dust and weeds. Wait. It is uglier than my backyard.
It's a garden. Americans are always fighting the wrong battles- no wonder nothing changes!
My parents moved 39 years ago. We had a very straight, very tall maple tree in the back yard. I moved out of state 40 years ago. Every year since then, when I go back to visit, I drive down that street to make sure that maple tree is still there. I was unable, because of Covid, to check on the tree this year.
H.L.Lewis love
Why has Bored Panda now gone so negative. I read this because I usually enjoy non-political items. This was all Political. Please no more.
For those wanting to 'get the facts straight', this may be a useful read. But do it quickly as 45 is bound to want to rewrite it asap: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/president-kennedys-rose-garden
The gorgeous vivid tulips would last only a few weeks or a month. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/president-kennedys-rose-garden