The White House Rose Garden "renovation" - removed trees, installed concrete

[haele]

108. The lawn looks like shit. They replaced the existing flower bed with an "easy maintenance" bed.

Looks like the easy maintenance "Curb Appeal Rose Garden and flowerbed - We design and deliver!" catelog picture from Home Depot or Lowes. And from the burn holes in the lawn, looks as if it had been poorly re-sodded with a cheap Fescue mix.
It's obvious. The administration decided to cheap out and cut the grounds staff.
The original bulb and annuals shade bed with the crab apples require a gardener every couple days. This arrangement only requires a "gardener"/ lawn guy twice a month and a halfway decent automatic watering system.

The flat poured cement walkway without side drainage is just more proof no one did any sort of homework. In fact, those cheap Armstrong Nursery roses are too close to the house for proper drainage; I see rose rust and all sorts of fungi appearing over the next couple years, it will all need to be ripped out within 5 years if they want to keep it looking professional. A good flowerbed takes planning, soil and grading treatment, quality plants, and regular hard work maintenance.

Y'know, we offered to fix up the landscaping on the house we were renting a decade or so ago and learned about sodding, drainage, and proper flowerbed maintenance pretty quickly and fairly easily. It still took over a year and a half before it settled into a proper lawn and garden, and it was hard work.

Haele