The White House Rose Garden. Just the name alone evokes elegance, pageantry, delicate glamour, formidable power.
Commissioned by John F Kennedy in 1961 under the guidance of his uber-chic wife, Jackie, and her good friend Bunny Mellon, the garden has provided the backdrop for many an iconic image — JFK Jr as a toddler in a powder-blue suit in 1963, standing barely taller than the flowers; Queen Elizabeth presenting the Churchill award to George HW Bush in 1991 in a purple straw hat and pearls; Donald Trump in 2017 yelling at an 11-year-old boy who had been given the honour of mowing the lawn.
But no longer is there to be any such honour, any such imagery — any such mowing, for that matter. For the Rose Garden lawn has been entirely paved over, replaced with blinding white slabs of limestone, underground lighting and, just to really set off the Tipp-Ex-white paving, Tipp-Ex-white tables and chairs, all topped off with yellow-and-white striped umbrellas that look more like they should be on a beach than in the capital city of the United States of America.