Thread by @lauraeweymouth, Okay, here is why, in my totally amateur opinion, the White House's [...]

Okay, here is why, in my totally amateur opinion, the White House's Rose Garden was unappealing and boring before, and is still unappealing and boring now

Because apparently garden analysis is what I want to do with my Sunday... https://twitter.com/lauraeweymouth/status/1297572723305127943

https://twitter.com/lauraeweymouth/status/1297572723305127943

This is the Rose Garden prior to renovation

It is both structurally and botanically very uninteresting

Just a big rectangle of lawn surrounded by linear, formal borders. Those borders also appear to be planted with stuff you can find at any garden center

None of the plants are interesting or stand-outs from a horticultural perspective. The layout's dull, the color scheme is...a mess. The giant lawn which gets used for seating is so, so boring. Please, I beg, at least put some sort of focal point at the center of all that grass

A fountain. An art installation. A tree. Another bed. LITERALLY ANYTHING TO BREAK UP THE MONOTONY.

And I know people sit here, but find *something* that works and won't block the view. At bare minimum a circular bed of spireas with a sundial in the middle!!!!!

I cannot for the life of me find any pictures of the Rose Garden prior to renovation where roses are actually featured, so my assumption is that they were underwhelming at best

Which makes sense, DC has a tough climate for roses and they're very finicky plants

Instead there are lots of pictures like the one above, of crab apples and tulips

Which, eh. Again, this is a dull display. None of the tulips are unusual or interesting. The color scheme is one that could have been put together from a mixed bag of bulbs bought at Tractor Supply

This is the Rose Garden post-renovation

It is structurally *identical*

No new focal point to ground all that awful grass. No change to the profile of the borders. The crab apples were pulled out and at least there are visible roses now, but this is barely a renovation

Points for having a cohesive and somewhat appealing color scheme now, but it is not hard to go from NO THEME AT ALL to AT LEAST NOW THERE'S SOMETHING

There are *so many interesting things* that could be done with that space and barely anything changed

It went from a cheap hodge-podge of plantings to a higher-maintenance, slightly more cohesive selection

But like, here's the thing about gardens and lawns

At buildings like the White House, gardens and lawns are a reflection of power and personality

This is why in Europe (especially the UK where they've made gardening into a high art) castles and estates have sprawling, diversely-planted gardens with a variety of themes. Rare horticultural specimens are cultivated, and everything is *meant* to be a show of beauty and power

A garden in a place of importance shows off expertise, taste, and disposable income all at once

It's a way of saying "I can pay people to maintain this living art creation for me, and have the taste and connections to make it attractive and surprising and visually exciting"

Lawns, as pointed out in a response, are a status symbol. They mean you can afford to keep a wide swath of useless monoculture groomed and maintained

Which is why surburbia remains obsessed with them, and why I hate them

But a lawn isn't meant to stand alone as a landscape feature. It's meant to serve as a backdrop for some other feature that draws the eye. A pond. A statue. A really popping mixed border

So anyway, the Rose Garden both pre- and post-renovation really does nothing to bolster or uphold the White House as a seat of power and taste

Its lawn is just a big, bland seating area...

Its borders are planted in imitation of some of the semi-formal European styles, but done so in a way that looks boring and cheap, from a gardener's perspective

Nothing about it is uniquely American, or a reflection of the character and quality of the location it exists within

So there are the reasons why I don't like the Rose Garden as it was before or as it exists now

And here's what *I* would do, if I had oversight of the space

Given that a garden at a place of national importance should reflect the history and character of the site, I'd go with curved edging for those borders. Nothing about American history has been linear except the fact that time always marches on

Then I'd do mixed perennial plantings within the borders, in a way that echoes the style of British mixed borders (which are justly famous) but makes it American. I'd use native species, rather than imported European ones

That would make the garden easier to maintain, more interesting, and a better mirror of the landscape it exists within. Serviceberries and dogwoods and eastern redbuds are all GORGEOUS small trees native to the area that could provide the architectural bones of the borders

I'd plant the shrub Virginia sweetspire under the trees. Then all around, in the sunnier areas, I'd do a variety of native perennials that pollinators love. Coneflower, black-eyed susan, blazing star, asters, and some feathery clumps of switchgrass here and there for interest

All of those plants are local, highly attractive, and easy to maintain. They're reflect the actual environment and flora of that part of the US, as well as increased public interest in green choices and the fate of native pollinators

The beds would look a LOT less formal and European which is GREAT, because *that's what America is like*. And they'd demonstrate that thought and care was put into the plant selection, rather than just ripping off borders that are a dime a dozen in Europe

And OBVIOUSLY I would put a feature in the middle of that lawn. Yes, I guess it has to be there for outdoor event seating or whatever (personally I would like no mown lawns, at all, ever) but there should at *least* be a bed in the middle

Stick some more sweetspire in it, surrounding a birdbath and a birdfeeder, and call it a day

Honestly though, the boldest and best move of all would be to just return the land and decisions surrounding its cultivation to the Native peoples of the area

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