Anyway, republicans have as much right to decide what to plant at the White House as Democrats. It's not like they replaced the plants with a parking lot. This hullaboo is just silly tribalism.
Camille Caldera
Aug. 26, 2020
Posts on Facebook this week allege that first lady Melania Trump removed notable plants from the White House Rose Garden in her recent renovation, which came ahead of her speech at the Republican National Convention.
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It's true that Jackie Kennedy oversaw the last major renovation of the Rose Garden, completed by designer Bunny Mellon in 1962.
The recent renovation was intended to "return it to its original ‘62 footprint," per an announcement from the White House in July.
The flowering trees visible in photos of the Rose Garden before the renovation were actually crabapple trees, not cherry trees, per the White House Historical Association. They also weren't "chopped down."
The crabapple trees have not been permanently removed from the White House. The 10 trees will be replanted elsewhere on the grounds after they are cared for offsite, per the Associated Press and C-SPAN.
Removal of some or all of the crabapple trees was first discussed in the 1980s by Mellon and first lady Nancy Regan, since the trees "had grown too large, shading out the plants below," per the White House Rose Garden Landscape Report.
The renovation also did not remove century-old roses.
It's true that the first Rose Garden was planted by first lady Ellen Willson in 1913. But there's no reason to believe that any of the plants from her garden, or those of other first ladies, were still alive prior to this renovation.
Marta McDowell, a landscape historian, told PolitiFact that roses are "fussy."
"They don’t last forever — plants are living things — and so sometimes they do need to be replaced," she said. "Most of these were long gone by the time the Trumps moved in."
Adrian Higgins, the gardening columnist for the Washington Post, also wrote in July that "the die-off of rose bushes to the point where only a dozen or so remained" was one of the numerous issues that was going to be addressed by the renovation.
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Our rating: False
Based on our research, claims that first lady Melania Trump removed historic cherry trees and roses in her recent renovation of the White House's Rose Garden are FALSE. The trees that were relocated were crabapple trees, and roses from previous gardens had likely already died or been replaced before the renovation.
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