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Jill Biden shares pic of Melania Trump's Rose Garden, but Internet urges her to restore it to 'former glory'

Last year, Melania Trump had unveiled her overhaul of the White House Rose Garden, which was heavily criticized on social media

First Lady Dr Jill Biden took to Twitter to show off a photo of the White House Rose Garden. This is, of course, the same Rose Garden that former first lady Melania Trump made controversial renovations to. Jill wrote on Twitter, “Spring is here at the @WhiteHouse!” sharing a photo of the garden.

Last year, Melania unveiled her overhaul of the White House Rose Garden, a month-long project that included digging up trees, replacing vibrant floral beds with white and pastel roses and laying down paved walkways. One of the former first lady's stated goals for the renovation was to “fulfill the dynamic needs of the modern presidency”.

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Horticulturist and gardener Rachel Lambert Mellon, who designed the garden, chose Katherine crab apple trees as part of the design. Her idea was: “Crab apples belong to the rose family and would blend well with the roses, perennials, annuals, and herbs that would grow beneath and around them. Aware that the garden would be used almost every day of the year and that the President had high hopes for it, I decided to divide the long beds into sections. The design, with a crab apple as the center of each section, would repeat itself and run like a ribbon the length of both beds.”

Melania reportedly dug them up and replanted them elsewhere on the White House grounds. Melania also reportedly swapped out the colorful tulips and other bright perennials and annuals in Mellon’s design for white and pastel roses and sharp boxwood hedges.

Prima facie it seems that Jill has made no changes to the garden after Melania's controversial one. However, Twitter seemed to rejoice nonetheless, with many asking the First Lady to restore the garden to its "former glory". One user said, “I read that trees and plants were saved from the Trump destruction - we need to bring those back. Americans are not happy with the carnage that took place in our Rose Garden. Right is Right  - please consider a reconstruction of our historic garden!” And another Twitter user wrote, “Thank you for improving the Rose Garden. Disgustingly destroyed so that Trump could hold political rallies there. One glance at Trump's Manhattan penthouse or Mar-a-Lago reveals a couple with absolutely no class whatsoever.”

One more said, "Please bring the roses back to the rose garden and add more colorful flowers!! Nature is a blessing and gives hope. Michele s garden back too. Carter’s solar panels. Let’s all make the earth green again! It’ll help with climate change! More trees too!" Another said, "Please Dr. Biden, form a commitee to reinstate the Rose Garden to its former glory. You're doing a great job as First Lady, and so lucky to get a wishing flower from such a loving husband. You're teaching girls what to hold as the standard of love. And its amazing to watch."

A Change.org petition started by Liz Tapanes of Memphis, Tennessee, also asks for Jackie Kennedy's legacy to be restored at the Rose Garden. The petition says, "Jackie's legacy was ripped away from Americans who remembered all that the Kennedys meant to us. We want Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff to take this on and restore the Rose Garden to Jackie's original design." At the time of writing this, the petition, which was created last month, had 77,301 signatures.

Coincidentally, this tweet arrives alongside reports of some other Trump-era overhauls. These overhauls, however, were necessary and yet not done. CNN reported that the White House was in need of substantial upgrades to its future security apparatus, updates that would include digging deeply and extensively, from the upper main driveway to the lower, across acres of pristine green grass. The Trumps reportedly weren't inclined to take this project on. “They didn't want the noise and, Melania Trump in particular, wanted to avoid disrupting the aesthetics on the back lawn,” the CNN report said. 

The project has now been ongoing for several weeks on the south side of the White House campus. And because of this, Joe Biden has had to meet his helicopter, Marine One, on the Ellipse, the park below the South Lawn perimeter of the White House and just north of Constitution Avenue. "It's been a headache," said one Secret Service source with knowledge of altered movements to circumvent the construction.