The announcement from the office of Melania Trump that the Rose Garden is getting an upgrade next month came at the worst possible time. It also came from one of the worst possible sources – a First Lady whose design tastes, whether it’s gilded apartments or Handmaid’s Tale-style Christmas trees – have come in for widespread abuse. (And then there’s who she’s married to, but no need to cover that topic here.)
So what does she have in store for the hallowed ground that is the White House Rose Garden?
Relax. It’s not HER design! It’s a much-needed upgrade planned by two very prominent landscape architects and their firms, along with the Committee for the Preservation of the White House and the keepers of the 18-acre property – the National Park Service.
The local landscape architecture firm hired for the job is none other than Oehme van Sweden, arguably the best known firm in this area, if not the whole country. I’ve fan-blogged them several times myself – here, here, here, here and here. Nuf said.
The other designer I’d never heard of but want to know more about. According to Washingtonian Magazine, “Trump tapped a New Yorker, a landscape architect from the Hamptons named Perry Guillot. Guillot is ‘a favorite of Hamptonites like Aerin Lauder, Tina Brown, and Tory Burch,’ according to Vanity Fair, is ‘somewhat of an authority on privacy-affording shrubbery,’ according to The Architect’s Newspaper, and even penned a coffee-table book about the privet, that ‘privacy-affording’ shrub ubiquitous around Southhampton.”
(Living among historic privet hedges myself, I’m curious to read his take on them.)
But if you just skim the 241-page Rose Garden Landscape Report that was attached to the announcement, as I did, you’ll see that it’s been in the works for quite a while. You might even notice that the groups consulted for the project include some of the most respected people in the DC area. (For example.)
What Other Garden Writers are Saying
While the Twittersphere was going nuts over the announcement, and by nuts I mean full of references to Marie Antoinette, I was happy to see that Adrian Higgins’s take in the Washington Post was quite sensible. (In order words, we agree.)
…the lavish redo of the Rose Garden has generated Marie Antoinette comparisons. In reality, the renovation is long overdue.
Among the problems to be addressed: a poorly drained lawn that had to be replaced annually, constant disturbance of roots of trees and shrubs by the seasonal planting of annuals, the die-off of rose bushes to the point where only a dozen or so remained, and the susceptibility of the defining boxwood parterres to a new, devastating disease named boxwood blight.A
One valid criticism that gardeners are raising is the timing of the work, including the planting of lots of new plants – in August. Higgins writes:
The rapid installation of the design is in contrast to the time spent developing it; we are told that construction projects at the White House are typically done in high summer when the first family is vacationing. But as any gardener in Washington knows, this is one of the most challenging periods of the year to plant living things, including turf grass.
Still seems crazy but if that’s what the gardening team there has to contend with, more power to them! I imagine landscapers everywhere can identify with clients making their job much harder than necessary.
Moving on, Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener Magazine, wrote in an email to me:
I actually don’t have an issue with it – looking at the plans it is really a tweak and partial restoration plus installing new underground irrigation and drainage pipes that are failing on the site.
Of course, certain media outlets are hyping it to make it political and about her, but I think this is actually staff-driven (national park service) and long overdue.
Gotta agree with Kathy. Though surely the announcement could have been handled differently – maybe had it come from a National Park Service bureaucrat instead of Melania herself? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Or maybe the announcement could have been worded differently. Saying that the renovation should be viewed as an “act of expressing hope and optimism for the future”? Don’t know that that resonates with anyone. Or this: “Our country has seen difficult times before, but the White House and the Rose Garden have always stood as a symbol of our strength, resilience and continuity.” Which brings us back to timing. Really unfortunate timing.
By the way, there were similar reactions to Melania Trump’s announcement in March (yes, of this year!) that a Classically styled tennis pavilion was being installed on the White House grounds. As one does to cope with life-threatening national crises.
For nonpolitical reactions I turned to a prominent architecture blog and found a few mentions of the architecture itself – that it’s just fine – but lots more mentions of Marie Antoinette. It’s just that kind of year.
Photo credit: Trump apartment.
Even Garden Writers who Hate Trump are Defending the Rose Garden Upgrade originally appeared on GardenRant on July 31, 2020.
The post Even Garden Writers who Hate Trump are Defending the Rose Garden Upgrade appeared first on GardenRant.
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As the gardening team at Buffalo’s 
Because of their historic connections with the house, some plants that many would hesitate to install—like Dutchman’s Pipe (above) and Japanese wisteria, have been propagated from original cuttings. Other choices include lilac, spirea, dittany, phlox, lily of the valley, and mock orange—all popular favorites during Isabelle Martin’s time. Most of these horticultural selections were made by Wright’s landscaping expert, Walter Burley Griffin. The nice thing about this landscape is that it provides several types of plantings—walkway borders, square beds, courtyard beds—that can serve as models for aspiring gardeners looking for ideas and plants that are relatively easy to grow and maintain.
Summer visitors to the grounds can also enjoy the pops of vivid color provided by seven large ceramic sculptures by Japanese artist Jun Keneko. It takes tons of clay to make some of these; the artist is renowned for making some of the world’s largest ceramic artworks.
As you can imagine from these photos, the sculptures, which are not there permanently, have created a bit of controversy. Some of the not-very-imaginative critiques have centered on what body parts they resemble and how much Wright would have detested them. I love them. For me, they provide perfect complements to the largely earth-toned campus and its understated, emerging landscape. They also force visitors to walk the entire grounds to find them all. Public art projects like this have been key to making our regained appreciation of outdoor life more about discovery and less about safety. Would Wright have approved? I suppose not. But he might appreciate the devotion, more than 100 years later, that the staff and volunteers of this property are showing to his legacy, which includes finding new ways to keep things exciting.
If you’re really interested, 
There remains a certain snobbishness about annuals, partly because some perceive them as “common,” and partly because they’re, well, annual. (Many of have seen the famous Plant Delights/Tony Avent T-shirt that says, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Buy Annuals.”) I always have a lot of annuals in pots and routinely I am asked during garden walks whether or not I can save them from year to year. Quel nightmare! I can just imagine trying to keep a lot of petunias, coleus, annual salvia, and scaveola alive over the winter, all of it growing scrawnier and buggier by the week in my less-than-optimal interior conditions. Anyway, I like to change it up, so no saving for me.
But I defy anyone to scorn annuals after seeing the magnificent work at Buffalo’s Erie Basin Marina Trial Gardens. For decades, these expansive gardens have been tended by one guy, Stan Swisher (above), who grows dozens of different annuals and some perennials from seeds he receives from several big seed companies (Ball, Danziger, and a few others). He moves the seedlings from the greenhouse for planting out and then keeps an eye on them. This year we had a hailstorm that flattened many of the plants; Swisher pinched them back and they recovered.
Life is too short for plain white!”
My first target is to add an accent color around the doorway – on the pole, the house numbers and maybe also these grey pots. An approved color I’m going to sample first is a sage, officially called Lynchberg Green but my associations with 
Opposite the front door are these dull-looking pots that could be lots more fun.
Series. (More bang for the buck!) It looked like it needed a home and was nicely described as being “covered with attractive butter-yellow blossoms adorned with a soft burgundy heart.”
Marcel Proust did not overestimate the power of the senses to recall the past. As soon as the first wave of fragrance from my ‘Garden Party’ orienpet lilies hits, I am taken back to other summers. In many ways, they were better summers. It has to be said, this is a weird one.
