First Lady Melania Trump will be speaking at the GOP convention from the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday. The famous garden had been under renovation since last month, but on Saturday the First Lady unveiled the result of the hard work. It was the first restoration in nearly 60 years.

Excited to honor history & celebrate the future in our beautiful @WhiteHouse Rose Garden this evening. Thank you to all who helped renew this iconic & truly gorgeous space. pic.twitter.com/ggiqLkdGbw

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) August 22, 2020

Because it had been such a long time, the Rose Garden really needed to be spruced up. However, the First Lady’s office announced that it would honor and improve upon the original 1962 design which Jackie Kennedy, whom Melania admires, had inspired. It now has new limestone paths, upgraded drainage, and underground electrical cables to accommodate new technology.

The roses in the new garden include the white “JFK rose,” which is the main variety. Others include smaller pink “peace” roses and the “Pope John Paul II” rose to honor the pope’s visit in 1979.

The White House didn’t divulge the cost of the Rose Garden project, but private donations covered the expense, even though critics made “Marie Antoinette” comparisons. However, even the Washington Post remarked that “the renovation is long overdue.” In particular, ten crabapple trees needed to be removed from the Rose Garden, since they have not done well since the introduction of a willow tree during the Lyndon Johnson administration. The 80-foot tree casts too much shadow for the crabapple trees to thrive well, so they’re being moved elsewhere on the WH grounds.

But because Trump! the Twitterverse erupted with howls of protest. How dare Melania Trump destroy that which the sainted Jackie Kennedy created!

Before and after pictures supposedly showed how Melania Trump destroyed Jackie Kennedy’s colorful garden. Melania, in fact, turned everything “all white” (*wink wink* insert racist accusation here.)

Before and after photographs of newly renovated White House Rose Garden:
courtesy #Getty and @marycjordan pic.twitter.com/w6bzoNHMjC

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 22, 2020

Other Twitter users posted a sentimental picture of little John Kennedy Jr. in the Rose Garden in 1963. How terrible that Melania destroyed his mama’s garden!

 Screenshot/Twitter.

Now I’m no gardener, but I do know that the colorful flowers in the “before” picture and in the picture with John Kennedy Jr. are not roses. They are, in fact, tulips. And tulips don’t bloom in the summer, so of course you wouldn’t see their vibrant hues at this time of year.

Nor do crabapple trees blossom in summer either; they blossom in spring. Plus, little John is wearing a spring outfit with a long-sleeved jacket — not something a little boy would wear in the heat of a DC summer.

The accusations that Melania Trump took out the “cherry trees” in the Rose Garden are also laughable.

You tasteless bitch. You cut down cherry blossom trees and removed tulips and desecreted a truly special place.

I fucking hate you and everything you stand for, you tacky, low rent, wife for hire.

— Red (@Redpainter1) August 22, 2020

Those weren’t cherry trees. Not only that, but the famous Washington, DC cherry blossom trees grow around the Tidal Basin, not in the Rose Garden anyway. They also bloom only in the spring, and just for a few short days.

The Twitterverse also went into the Wayback Machine to criticize the First Lady’s taste in Christmas decorations.

Lest we forget Melania’s taste in Christmas decorations! pic.twitter.com/aPwnGSXJtf

— Church Lady (@SoulWomen) August 23, 2020

Finally, author Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy and who once claimed a Trump supporter sent him a seizure-inducing tweet, denigrated Melania for being an immigrant. Therefore, she had no right to renovate the Rose Garden.

“Someone who has only been a citizen for less than 1/3 of her life should be reverent to America’s history, should honor our history, not decide her personal taste should rip it up.”

Wait . . . aren’t all immigrants the most honorable of people who deserve our admiration? Never mind. It’s also laughable that the rabid Twitter mob which has celebrated the destruction of statues honoring Civil War soldiers, Columbus, and even an elk suddenly want to “honor” American history.

I also find it ironic that liberal Vox ridiculed the new Rose Garden walkways with this line. . .

“The Trumps paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

. . . when Melania wanted the walkways there to accommodate people in wheelchairs. You know, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Where’s the liberal concern for the disabled, hmm?

As First Lady, Melania Trump didn’t try to overhaul the health care system, or force unpalatable school lunches down the throats of American kids as did two of her predecessors. She merely renovated and improved a Rose Garden which needed an overhaul anyway. But because President Trump is her husband, anything she does must be The Worst Thing Ever. Melania can’t win, no matter what she does.

As for me, I plan to watch the First Lady’s address in the newly-restored Rose Garden. It will be a lovely backdrop for a lovely and dignified First Lady.

Welcome, Instapundit readers! 

Featured image: First Lady Melania Trump and Mrs. Kenyatta/The White House/flickr/cropped/public domain.