White House Rose Garden

White House Rose Garden, garden outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C. It was planted by first lady Ellen Wilson in 1913, during the administration of U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson. The garden has since been used as a gathering space for momentous events, announcements, and meetings. Over the years the garden has seen multiple changes, including a significant renovation during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. During his second term in 2025, Pres. Donald Trump had the garden’s grassy center paved over, claiming that this would improve drainage and make the space more accessible.

Early history

The area was initially home to a colonial-style garden designed by first lady Edith Roosevelt, wife of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, between 1902 and 1903. The space featured several varieties of flowers, including daisies, jasmine, and select wildflowers gathered from the countryside. Edith Roosevelt also created a similar garden on the East Grounds, which eventually came to be known as the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.

In 1913 first lady Ellen Wilson planted roses in the area adjacent to the West Wing, and the space formally became known as the White House Rose Garden. Ellen Wilson worked with George Burnap, a landscape architect, to design the area. It was partially because of this redesign that roses became symbolic of the White House and, by extension, the United States. In the 1930s, during the administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, conservationist and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (whose father helped plan Central Park’s layout), redesigned portions of the garden to give it a more open, airy feel. Olmsted also made sure that the garden was always in bloom.

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Kennedy era

In 1961 Pres. John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy visited Europe and returned to the United States brimming with ideas about creating an American equivalent of the lush gardens they had seen on their trip, which included the gardens of Versailles. John F. Kennedy tapped Rachel Lambert Mellon to be the primary designer to make over the Rose Garden. Mellon wrote later that this was a “startling request” but ultimately irresistible for a professional garden designer.

Mellon found inspiration in October 1961 while looking at a number of magnolia trees planted in front of the Frick Collection in New York City. Thus, four magnolia trees were planted in the Rose Garden, one per corner. Mellon also chose to have crabapple trees line the border of the garden, as well as a “tapestry of flowers” that would surround the trees in a ribbonlike pattern. The renovation was completed in 1962. Kennedy often strolled in the garden while contemplating important national decisions. Foreign leaders sometimes requested to meet in the Rose Garden rather than in the Oval Office, leading it to be called the “outdoor Oval Office” among staff.

Trump era

In 2020 first lady Melania Trump initiated a redesign of the Rose Garden that involved removing the crabapple trees and adding a limestone walkway around the garden’s edge. She also added multiple new rose bushes that featured white and pastel-colored flowers. The changes received mixed reviews, with one critic describing them as an “evisceration” of a prominent landmark.

The Rose Garden underwent another makeover in 2025, this time initiated by Pres. Donald Trump during his second term. The controversial redesign had the formerly grassy space paved over entirely. The president claimed that the grass had been inconvenient for women in high heels, telling The Spectator that their heels were going “right through the grass, like four inches deep.”

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Notable events

In 1971, during Pres. Richard Nixon’s administration, his daughter Tricia Nixon was married in the Rose Garden. It was the first outdoor wedding in the White House’s history, and the ceremony had about 400 people in attendance. The couple stated their vows under a gazebo that had been specially built for the occasion and threaded with hundreds of white roses.

During the administrations of subsequent presidents, the Rose Garden continued to serve as a space for notable occasions, such as pardoning the White House turkey, signing bills, briefing press, and entertaining dinner guests. In 1981 Pres. Ronald Reagan presented Sandra Day O’Connor as his nominee for justice to the Supreme Court; she would become the first woman to serve on the court. In 1993 Pres. Bill Clinton confirmed his selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Supreme Court justice nominee in the Rose Garden. The following year, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan in the garden to facilitate a peace treaty between the countries. In 2004 Pres. George W. Bush used the garden to hold a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In 2009 Obama hosted Harvard professor and scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and police sergeant James Crowley in the Rose Garden for what became known as the White House “beer summit.”