Trump White House Continues Garden Tour Tradition that Was Founded by Pat Nixon

Nixon scholar: “The tour of 1973 very much looks like the tour of 2025.”

Former First Lady Pat Nixon (in red) presides over the first public White House Grounds and Garden Tour on April 14, 1973. The tour group included then Washington, D.C. Mayor Walter E. Washington and student winners of a poster contest sponsored by the Society for a More Beautiful National Capitol. (Photo: Nixon White House)

Visitors to the annual Spring Garden Tour of the White House arrived on Sunday for the public viewing of the grounds. The event, which was originally scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday, was shifted at the last minute by First Lady Melania Trump to only Sunday in response to a massive anti-Trump protest taking place the day before in Washington, D.C.

The tour was also the last opportunity for visitors to take a close-up look at one of the oldest trees on the grounds—a Southern magnolia—which was planted by former President Andrew Jackson in memory of his wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson, who died just prior to Jackson being sworn in as president.

Yet, it is the rare …