Why Does the White House Have a Rose Garden?

Then in nineteen First Lady Ellen Louise Axon Wilson, the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson, followed her lead by replacing what had become known as the West Garden with a rose garden, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt went on in nineteen thirty five to appoint famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Son of the creator of New York Central Park, to freshen up the design of the rose Garden.

In nineteen sixty one, under the direction of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, amateur gardenist Rachel Lambert Bunny Melon was asked to design the current garden, which led to what is known today as the Kennedy Rose Garden, adjacent to the Oval Office and cabinet room. We spoke via email with Dan Roberts, a liberal arts and history professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia who also serves as executive producer and host of the syndicated history radio program A

Moment in Time. Roberts explained it was part of a general landscape redesign of the White House complex. The Rose Garden balanced the structure with the East Garden or Jacqueline Kennedy Garden on the other side of living quarters in the central and original building of the White House. This is essentially the Rose Garden we know today. So how

did Bunny Melon become involved? It all began at a summer picnic at Melon's Cape Cod Beach house that included President in Missus Kennedy as guests, according to an interview Melon conducted for the White House Historical Association. In that interview, Mellon recalled hardly had the President came ashore from his boat when he suggested we sit down and discuss a garden for the White House. He and Missus Kennedy had just returned from a state visit to France, followed by

stops in England and Austria. The President had 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

there appealed to the sensibilities of all people. Melan envisioned a fifty by a hundred foot lawn that's about fifteen by thirty meters, large enough to accommodate a thousand people for ceremonial activities and receptions, and small enough to be covered by a tent flanked in all four corners by magnolia trees, and twelve foot or four meter wide borders planted with smaller trees, roses, and other flowers, including flowers

used during Thomas Jefferson's period in office. The plans also called for a platform on the west end of the garden near the oval office, and a flagstone terrace on the east end to serve as a place where the president could relax and entertain guests or post small luncheons.

To execute her design, Melan sought out Irvin Williams, head gardener of Washington's Kennilworth quatic gardens, and then asked Jackie to arrange for Williams to be transferred to the White House's Chief Gardener, prestigious job that he held for almost

fifty years. The garden was unveiled on April nineteen sixty two, and the first ceremonial occasion held there in July of nineteen sixty two featured swearing in of Anthony Celebreezi, the former mayor of Cleveland, as the new Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Melon's design created the White House central lawns so familiar to today's TV viewers, according to Roberts. He said, it's surrounded by flower beds anchored by crab

apple and little leaved linden trees. Hedges of thyme and boxwood are intermingled with flower beds filled with the gardens signature rose varieties Queen Elizabeth, Pascali, Pat Nixon, and King's Ransom. Blooming bulbs of john Quill, daffodils, and tulips burst into verdant color in springtime and summertime annuals paint the flower beds with rich hues until fall, when flowering kale and chrysanthemums and live in the garden with color almost until

the early days of winter. While Kennedy was in office, he used the gardens to host Peace Corps volunteers before they went overseas, invited the award winning University of Arkansas choir to join him there, welcomed Algerian Premier Ahmed ben Bella with a twenty one gun salute, and greeted the astronauts of Project Mercury. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Rose Garden also served as a dramatic backdrop as he and advisers devised a strategy to avoid a nuclear war

with Russia. Today, the Rose Garden is kept as a private reserve for the president to relax, read, converse with his aids, and engage in contemplation, according to Roberts, but he added that through the years, presidents have also used the space to showcase diplomatic, social, and political events, making important public proclamations, holding press conferences, greeting significant guests, introducing political allies and appointees, rallying allies for partisan battles, and

celebrating congressional and national victory. Roberts said that among some of the most memorable activities to take place there where when quote Tricia Nixon was wed to Edward F. Cox and spectacular nuptials in one and President Bill Clinton presided over the declaration of peace between Israel and Jordan. But it's not all serious stuff. He also said, one quirky tradition rears its head, or shall we say their heads in high summer. On July one, garden gnomes mysteriously appear

scattered throughout the rose garden. The number of these stone characters happens to coincide with the number of living presidents, and on Monday, July, First Lady Milannia Trump's office released a statement announcing a massive renewal and enhancement of the

White House Rose Garden. The accompanying report lists, as part of its mission statement quote to curate an outdoor experienced transcendent of each administration and promote design solutions that are steeped in scholarship and intellect and are reflective of meticular liss attention to narrative intent and detail. Today's episode was written by Wendy Bowman and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of other green topics, visit how Stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of

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