Governors' Mansions

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Great Federal Examples



The White House

GROWING FOOD
By now the whole world knows that Michelle Obama and her team have created a 1,100-square-foot Obama2a vegetable garden on the White House grounds, and that it's organic.  And gardeners and foodies are thrilled at this development, though clearly the chemical industry is not.   

And as I've written before, this particular vegetable garden is smart is so many ways:

  • It's modest in size, for greater teaching and inspiring American families.
  • It's cheap - about $200 - with similar benefits.
  • Kids at Bancroft Elementary School are involved in the project, which goes a long way toward supporting school gardens, among other benefits.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPING
Most of the experts I consulted for the proposal "Greening the White House Grounds"[pdf] are hoping and expecting, as I am, to see lots more good gardening news coming from this White House. Below are some of the concerns expressed about the 18 acres there (and here's some background to the proposal.)

  • Lawn care/less lawn.  Is it organic?  How much fertilizer and pesticides are applied to it, if any?  Is it a mix of species, including maybe some clover for the pollinators, or a monoculture?  And so on.  Michael Pollan proposed changes to the White House lawn back in 1991 in a piece that was republished by the New York Times in March of 2009.  Here's the link.
  • Pesticides.  Are those disease-prone roses in the Rose Garden being sprayed with products?  The Rodale Institute exhorted the Clinton Administration to stop spraying them, but there was no (reported) response.
  • Water management and conservation.  Are the plants thirsty or drought-tolerant, and how much irrigation is being done, and how?  Is stormwater directed immediately into the river or retained on site?
  • Composting.  Is all green waste being recycled?
  • Short-lived plants.  Are there still bedding annuals that bloom for a month and then get tossed?  Or are they switching to tough, low-maintenance shrubs and perennials?
  • Providing for wildlife.  Is there a diversity of plants being grown, including plenty of native plants? 
  • Providing for humans.  Well, we DO know that a terrific-looking play set has been added by the Obamas, and there's talk of more picnic tables and using the grounds for entertaining.

GREAT DESIGN, TOO
Many contributors to the proposal are also hoping to see a redesign of the White House grounds,  some much-needed updating (it's been about 50 years, after all), including a lovely, people-friendly design for the vegetable garden.  A national design competition could be held, which would highlight the best and most environmentally progressive landscape architects and designers in the U.S.  

Robin2 
The Maryland kitchen garden of gardenwriter Robin Wedewer

ENCOURAGING SIGNS/GREAT NEWS
On May 12, President Obama signed the Chesapeake Bay Executive Order, so we expect to see due attention paid to the impact that landscaping practices at the White House could be having on the Bay.  (Polluting the Bay is, hands down, the number one environmental harm caused by conventional, landscaping practices in the Mid-Atlantic region.) The order contains this encouraging mandate on the federal government: "Strengthen stormwater management practices for federal facilities and federal land within the Bay watershed and develop a best practices guide for reducing polluted runoff." And the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council (of the affected states) has been requiring reductions in pollution by lawn fertilizers since 2006, which tells us that governors in PA, MA, and VA and the mayor of D.C. are engaged in the process.