Melania Trump announced the renovation of the White House Rose Garden with hopes to bring its old glory. However, many Americans were not pleased with her plan to make the historical garden aesthetically pleasing while many are struggling due to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic to the U.S. economy.
Melania has done several remodeling around the White House since her husband, Donald Trump, stepped in as the 45th president of the United States. Her latest project is the renovation of the White House Rose Garden.
According to FLOTUS, she wants to return the garden to its original glory when it was first designed by Rachel Lambert Mellon in 1962. Melania said the garden needs some modern upgrades after decades of use.
Landscape architect Perry Guillot, who is working on the project, told Associated Press that the biggest change to the garden will be the addition of a three-foot-wide limestone pathway that borders the central lawn. The new and improved garden will reportedly be more accessible for people with disabilities.
Other changes will be made to the drainage, plantings, and audiovisual and broadcasting technologies. The works at the Rose Garden have already begun and it is expected to be completed in about three weeks.
However, Melania Trump and her project received backlash on social media. Many were not happy with the renovation announcement, especially that it is being done while the country is in the middle of a pandemic. It can be recalled that Melania, also, faced criticisms for the construction of a privately-funded tennis pavilion on the South Lawn around the time the coronavirus started to spread across the country.
On her latest project at the White House, some pointed out that Melania made plans to make the Rose Garden aesthetically pleasing and modern while millions of Americans are losing eviction protections and unemployment payments while dealing with COVID-19 at the same time. Others compared Melania to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France. The name "Marie Antoinette" trended on social media as soon as FLOTUS revealed her plans for the Rose Garden.
One said he wonders if Marie Antoinette also gave the gardens at Versailles some upgrades while the French Revolution was brewing. Another jokingly said Marie Antoinette would give Melania Trump a nod for her tone-deaf aloofness if the queen of France would still have her head.
It was written in history books that Marie Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI of France, were both condemned for treason and sentenced to death by guillotine in 1973. The royal couple reigned between 1755 to 1792, the year when the monarchy was abolished during the French Revolution.
