The newly renovated White House Rose Garden is under repair less than three weeks after its official unveiling. The garden is experiencing “issues with water drainage” and “some minor complications with updated construction,” a source with knowledge of the garden troubles told CNN. New sod is also being laid down.
First lady Melania Trump on August 22 hosted a private party to celebrate the redone Rose Garden, which the public was told had been completed after approximately three weeks of renovation.A White House spokesman said Tuesday that taxpayers will not have to pay for the cost of re-sodding the Rose Garden.
“The sod is being replaced at no cost to taxpayers,” deputy press secretary Judd Deere told CNN.
Instead, the tab for the repairs to the grass will be paid for by the Trump campaign, a campaign official told CNN.
The first lady’s renovation followed the guidelines from the garden’s original 1962 layout — but the update was largely panned by critics for looking substantially altered. Most discussed was the removal of 10 crabapple trees. The trees, which over the years had been replaced and were not the Kennedy-era originals, were transported to a National Park Service facility for care. According to a White House official, they will be replanted elsewhere on the grounds in the near future.
The trees were causing too much shade to provide for healthy and regular growth of the florals and shrubs beneath them, according to a 220-page report on the garden history and renovation prepared for the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.
Renovated White House Rose Garden undergoing repairs
