The "All The Presidents' Gardens" Story

Preface:  Today's story about the White House may be hard to follow due to the changing from year to year, both forward and backward, but hopefully the flow of the story will help with that fact.  It was hard to decide to make the story chronologically accurate or to make it accurate by sections of the White House.  The United States White House, home of the President of the United States and his family has seen many changes due to the tastes of each President.  Thus, the need to reflect back instead of forward at times.  Please follow with me as you read.

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a few online stories about Harriet Lane for a story I wrote about her a few months ago.  

President Buchanan's niece, Harriet Lane.

Harriet Lane was former President James Buchanan's niece who during his four years in the White House served as his "First Lady".  Not only did she serve as the hostess at the White House, she actually had a greenhouse built on the roof of the west terrace.  As I read on I found a very interesting photograph that showed that greenhouse, or conservatory as Buchanan called it.  This conservatory was used throughout the decades until Teddy Roosevelt moved into the White House and removed the conservatory to make room for what today is known as the West Wing.  He found it necessary to replace the greenhouse to make room for his 5 children.  Our first President, George Washington, selected the site for the White House in 1791 with the cornerstone being laid the following year.  The architect was James Hoban who was chosen for the job after winning a competition.  After eight years of construction, President John Adams and his wife Abigail moved into the unfinished house in 1800.  Fourteen years later the British set fire to the President's House during the War of 1812.  

The Conservatory or greenhouse can be seen on the left.

The same architect was chosen once again to rebuild the house and President James Monroe moved into the building in 1817.  During Monroe's adminis- tration the South Portico was added and Andrew Jackson oversaw the addition of the North Portico in 1829.  In 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt moved in, he began a major renovation of the White House as well as dismantling the conservatory to add the West Wing.  The grounds around the White House comprise 18 acres of ground that were used for signings of treaties, a retreat for several Presidents, a setting for meals with Kings, a place for First Ladies to entertain and even a putting green for President Eisenhower.  It was also a place where Presidents and their wives, as well as a niece, planted roses, orchids and organic vegetables.  When President James Madison moved into the White House in 1809, he 

The interior of the greenhouse or conservatory.

brought in both native and exotic trees, shrubs like Rose of Sharon and lilacs and a variety of vegetables which supplied the White House kitchen.  Many of the seeds that Madison purchased came from nearby Philadelphia as well as Shaker  communities in New England.  Then in 1814 the British marched into Washington D.C. and set fire to the White House.  

Teddy Roosevelt and his family in the garden.

In 1825 John Quincy Adams became President and planted acorns and other seeds on the ground of the White House.  He eventually started our country's first forestry project to create a supply of lumber for the U.S. Navy.  Some of the oaks he planted are still standing today.  Then James Buchanan and Harriet arrived and opened the conservatory which was filled with plants from the jungle and desert, bogs and mountaintops.  

President Carter and his children in the tree house.

There were citrus trees, exotic plants, aloe and cacti, all living together.  And then...Teddy arrived!  President Kennedy and his wife Jackie asked their friend "Bunny" Mellon to redesign the west garden which she did by making what today is known as the rose garden.  She added traditional beds filled with 3,000 tulips and lined with crabapple trees and roses.  During the building of the rose garden, construction crews dug up horseshoes, pieces of the glass conservatory and a secure telephone line which triggered an atomic alert.  "Bunny" was asked to create a companion garden on the east side of the White House the day before the Kennedy's fateful trip to Dallas.  

The Kennedy's in the Rose Garden.

Lady Bird completed the job, dedicating it to Jackie Kennedy.  Over the years a few rather unusual things have happened in the gardens around the White House.  President Lincoln's two youngest sons, Willie and Tad (the first children to live in the White House) had free run of the garden grounds during their father's Presidency and allowed their pet goats to eat most of the flowers on the grounds.  Then, during Woodrow Wilson's Presidency, the White House gardeners were diverted to defense work, thus allowing the gardens to take to weeds.  By 1918, a herd of twenty Hampshire sheep took up residence on the South Lawn of the White House to keep te grass trimmed.  They were sheered and their wool was auctioned to benefit the American Red Cross.   President Carter created a platform tree house in a huge blue atlas cedar on the South Lawn for his daughter Amy while the Obama Kitchen Garden and adjacent pollinator garden were toured by local school classes.  All the President's gardens have been a variety of just about everything, but that's what makes them so interesting.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Michele Obama in her Kitchen Garden.