Talk:White House Rose Garden

Arrticle layout
Wiki manual of Style does not require moving images left and right, and does allow for the first image to be larger than following thumbs. The issue of moving the images is one of reading path. How the eye navigatges across a printed or electronic page. Tests conducted in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, U.K., and U.S. have concluded that readability is aided by dedicated zones for image and dedicated zones for text. Alternating images right and left disrupts the left text edge where the eye habitually looks to return in contiuing to the next line. CApitol3 (talk)


 * The WP:MOS covers readability of articles and images in detail, specifically making sure that editors recognize that readers are using many different browsers and computer systems, the changes I made are consistent with those guidelines as to size, placement and use of extraneous images. If you'd like to add a gallery go ahead, but please don't revert good faith edits that conform to recognized guidelines.Awotter (talk) 19:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute - Official and Informal Use
The paragraph under "Official and Informal Use" relating to George W Bush's speech on same sex marriage is controversial. It has appeared in several different forms being added by a range of anonymous editors at similar IP addresses and has been challenged by other editors on numerous occasions. Specific Wikipedia policies which need to be addressed are the lack of citations for the claims made and NPOV violation, the neutrality of the article being questionable. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 02:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It is a matter of original research as well. Apart from being ridiculous: using a garden for unifying measures or for dividing measures. There is no such concept. This absolutely has to go. Debresser (talk) 21:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Removal should be prompt. Gusbenz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.90.254 (talk) 13:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Can we have this page protected. I'm tired of the biased a**hat who keeps adding the section about Bush. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.155.94 (talk) 16:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not biased. It's factual and true. Try doing some actual research yourself before you make biased and untruthful comments. Everything in that section is 100% fact. Just because you don't want to admit it doesn't make it any less true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.36.84.128 (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no indisputable evidence showing that. Your reference does nothing but show that it was announced from there. Nothing more. Everything else is your biased conjecture. Now stop vandalizing the article or you will be dealt with. SChaos1701 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:30, 21 August 2010 (UTC).

Update needed
The description of the garden needs an update. I'm talking about the description in the second paragraph that begins "The present-day garden follows the same layout first established by Mellon, where each flower bed is planted with a series of 'Katherine' crabapples and Littleleaf lindens bordered by low diamond-shaped hedges of thyme." For one thing, it talks about the crabapple trees in the present tense, when in fact they have now been removed (and will be relocated elsewhere on the White House grounds according to report). There are undoubtedly other things about the newly renovated garden that need to be updated. I'm not going to attempt it myself; I am no expert on flowers or on the history of the garden. My only connection to this article is that I semi-protected it temporarily, per a request at WP:RFPP. But I can see that someone needs to fix this since the current information is out of date and at least partially incorrect. I suggest a discussion here first, on how best to incorporate the updates and corrections into the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:42, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Pinging a couple of recent editors of the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that it needs an update. However at the moment the subject is quite politicized; I'm staying away until it calms down.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:10, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Same. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That's reasonable. Give me a holler if it needs protection again. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:17, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I would also recommend that anyone updating this page uses the “White House Rose Garden Landscape Report”, published by the Committee for the Preservation of the White House Subcommittee for Garden and Grounds, 2020 as a source to confirm historical facts about the garden. It is a 241 page document filled with more historical information than one could begin to research on their own. It is easily located by a Google search. Maryliebert (talk) 19:39, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That might be a good source. On the other hand, seeing as it is published by the current White House, which has a reputation for repeated lying and deception, it might not be a good source. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 19:42, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I would suggest reading the report before making a statement like that.Maryliebert (talk) 22:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I assume that was a joke/sarcasm? It's always so hard to tell online. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:31, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * 100% serious. The (current) Whitehouse has published far too many falsehoods to qualify as a reliable source. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 23:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * We usually prefer not to use a WP:Primary Source like that, but in this case it may be the only authoritative source of detailed information. I doubt if any Secondary Source is going to go into much detail, although if they do we should use it. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:31, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

If you will look at the last 4-5 pages document, you will see a very thorough bibliography. There is a very hefty historical portion to the document. As far as the updates to the garden there are currently two articles whose authors have “done their homework” - one by the Capital Gazette and the other by Architectual Digest, although some of the AD article is laden with opinion. Having personally read the 241 page document, there were a number of hazards that needed to be mitigated with this renovation. Not one article mentioned the Jackson tree is in very very tough shape and they are taking and have taken all sorts of actions over the last few decades to deal with that situation. I have not seen one article present the overlay drawings in the document. Maryliebert (talk) 05:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not particularly interested in this article, so I'll say this and depart. If any news organization published as many outright lies as the Trump White house does on a daily basis, then we would question them as a source. The current WH is demonstrably a lying factory that even throws into disrepute the veracity of something as banal as a garden report. Yeah, it's a garden report. But: the WH lies about pretty much everything. Melania is also the chair of the comittee that wrote the garden report, and we all know she plagiarized her 2016 RNC speech. The best thing might be to use the bibliography from the WH Rose garden document as a starting point. Rant over. Happy editing. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 05:25, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Newsweek
The facts presented on the renovation (from Newsweek) are not correct. Maryliebert (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of the information is correct, but the article got a lot of things wrong. We do not consider Newsweek a Reliable Source for news and I will remove the paragraph and the reference. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:36, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * However removal of the new information results in an inaccuarate description of the post-Melania garden. If you want to remove the article as a reference, then OK, but the revised article is factually incorrect. --Zeamays (talk) 17:55, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Is this germane?
“Following the event, several attendees tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019, including Trump himself.” This seems like an unnecessary detail that has nothing to do with the garden. 2604:2D80:A282:1300:3C08:17DE:456:BF02 (talk) 00:28, 27 February 2022 (UTC)


 * It has to do with a ceremony that occurred at the garden. The story is a part of the garden's history now. Its use as a site for ceremonial occasions is relevant to the garden's identity, in my opinion. Icowrich (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Lead image
Is the current image the best we can do? It's not great quality, it gives an oblique view of the garden, and shows as much of the colonnade as it does the garden itself. Commons has a large number, but most are of people/events in the garden, rather than the garden itself. Possible alternatives? KJP1 (talk) 12:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)