Flowers in full bloom in the White House Rose Garden on April 27, 1963.
Photo: Getty Images
“The president proposed to her: make a plan for this garden space where I can have a beautiful place to give a press conference,” Lloyd explains. “That was her job. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, make me a beautiful rose garden that looks like your garden at Oak Spring in Upperville.’ It was all about JFK’s direction.”
So, under what direction are today’s White House gardeners operating? A space that’s party-proof, Mar-a-Lago-inspired, and—according to Trump himself—less treacherous for high-heeled women.
“Well, what’s happening is… that’s supposed to have events. Every event you have, it’s soaking wet, and the women with the high heels—it’s just too much,” Trump told Fox’s Laura Ingraham during a March White House tour. The roses, he clarified, would stay. The grass? Gone. In its place: “Gorgeous stone.”
Aside from these anecdotes, the White House has offered no formal press release or public briefing on the Rose Garden renovations. Instead, the window into the transformation has come via photo wires, which have documented the garden’s gradual—and often curious—metamorphosis. On June 11, a bulldozer appeared on the lawn. By June 21, gravel had been poured into deep trenches. A week later, on July 15, the garden was a scene of blue tarps, makeshift umbrellas, and orange-vested workers hauling what appeared to be concrete slabs. By July 23, the lawn had vanished entirely, replaced by stone tiles laid in a diamond pattern.
June 11, 2025Photo: Getty Images
July 01, 2025Photo: Getty Images
July 15, 2025Photo: Getty Images
July 23, 2025Photo: Getty Images
The redesign, overseen by the National Park Service and funded by the Trust for the National Mall, is said to reimagine the garden in the image of Trump’s favored patio at Mar-a-Lago—where, per The New York Times, the former president “spends hours of his evenings… holding an iPad, controlling the playlist and blasting Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown at earsplitting volumes.”