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The rose garden in front of the White House in August 2020: You can find that boring
Photo: DREW ANGERER / Getty Images via AFP
Some things that had been initiated by the Trump administration have already been reversed: Among other things, Joe Biden made sure that the US is back in the Paris climate agreement, he stopped the withdrawal of US soldiers from Germany and lifted the entry ban Green card applicants.
Less earth-shattering, but not without symbolic power: a not inconsiderable part of the White House furnishings is said to have been replaced when the Bidens moved in.
And now the rose garden in front of the residence and government seat of the American President is to be put in a state as if Donald and Melania Trump had never existed - at least that's what a petition at Change.Org calls for, which is now supported by more than 75,000 people.
The argument: Melania had several Japanese cherry trees and other plants removed and replaced them with a "boring gift to yourself."
This destroyed the memory of Jackie Kennedy, who once helped design the rose garden and after which it is still named today.
He should be returned to the pre-Melania state.
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A flower bed in the rose garden in April 2008, before Melania Trump's change
Photo: Brooks Kraft / Corbis via Getty Images
The initiator of the petition shows an old spring photo from the presidential garden with lush flowering tulip borders and ornamental fruit trees and next to it a more recent one from August 2020 after Melania Trump was at work: white flowers can only be guessed, trees are missing.
The catch, however, with this eye-catching contrast: We as viewers cannot even see what the changes made by Melania look like in spring - the tulip season is over in August, as we know.
The whole thing is functional
Such propaganda measures against the garden in its current form may be politically opportune - but it is not about garden art.
The roses and perennials that Melania chose bloom mainly in white and pink, which can be found boring.
The abundant use of boxwood, a sturdy, evergreen plant: so boring.
But: The whole thing is functional.
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First Lady Melania Trump on May 7, 2019 in the rose garden
Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP
The Rose Garden of the White House is often used as a backdrop for informal, but definitely official occasions. The president can slip out the patio door and make a statement, celebrate a wedding or receive astronauts. In any case, the cameras are often there, and so that people are clearly visible, a calm background is recommended - and this is easy to design with Buchs. The green sculptures in the State Garden of Versailles, for example, are made of boxwood because it can withstand the hard cut. Melania Trump's plans for redesign also included modernizing the technical equipment and improving wheelchair users.
So should the Biden administration heed the garden petition?
No!
It should tackle longer-term planning independently of Melania enemies: For example, a wild meadow to replace the huge lawn around the White House.
From a climate policy point of view, it has long been out of date.
Regardless of this, the following applies anyway: There is no 1: 1 reconstruction in garden architecture, as the initiators of the petition imagine.
Plants grow, they change their shape, climatic conditions change.
You have to watch a garden and gradually make changes that bring aesthetic and functional benefits.
He gets more beautiful the older he gets, in any case he is constantly changing.
The baroque book, however, remains the same as long as it is kept in shape. Maybe that was also a reason for Melania to use it so generously: At least something in life that you can shape entirely according to your own will. Perhaps the numerous critics should just be glad that the box trees were not cut into Trump silhouettes.