Two people walking by the rose garden big roses

I’m not a fan of changing much in historical gatdens. Feels somehow disrespectful. in any case, thanks for all the info! I have often wondered about just this.

I'm honestly shocked they're not all American bred  roses

Here is one article entitled "President Kennedy's Rose Garden"

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/president-kennedys-rose-garden

The others are behind a paywall now. There was also a very long, multi-paged study from University of Pittsburg (????? Or someplace) I'm sorry, I can't check because I used up my complementary free article. In 2021 these articles were all available for free. Here is one of them:
Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 7:27 PM

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/why-the-white-house-rose-garden-redesign-is-still-making-news "Who knew that 10 crab apple trees gone AWOL could spark ... ?"

It was Bunny Mellon, a friend of Jack's, who was the designer, according to wikipedia: "Rachel Lambert 'Bunny' Mellon was an American horticulturalist, gardener, philanthropist, and art collector. She designed and planted a number of significant gardens, including the White House Rose Garden, and assembled one of the largest collections of rare horticultural books."

The garden was renamed after Jacqueline Kennedy in 1964, I believe.

Members of the Rose Forum, who cherish historical accuracy in all things, and especially those historical facts having to do with roses, ought to be very interested in getting such details right.

I am sorry about the crab apples, I mistakenly called them cherry trees. I actually have a very special place in my heart for crab apples. Especially those planted in Central and Riverside Park in Manhattan, which I used to admire growing up, and which for that reason are more dear to me than cherries. Many of them are intoxicatingly fragrant.

Here is what Bunny Mellon had to say: "On either side of the large lawn there could be a border 12 feet wide in which to plant smaller trees, roses, and other flowers. The President loved flowers and asked if a variety of other types could be mixed with the roses. He had read the published garden notes of Thomas Jefferson and hoped for flowers used in Jefferson’s period."

Kennedy was a voracious reader. That was one of the things that was so attractive about him. He read Mary Renault's books as they came out, for example - they were best sellers -- something people used to pay attention to in those days. He also was a follower of the technique of speed reading -- all this was written about in the daily papers. I don't remember people talking or writing about Jackie reading a lot of books. Visual arts were more her thing, though she did later work in a publishing house.

Jackie was a book editor in New York along with being a photographer. It would be fair to give her credit. I read her friends designed the garden. She researched the history of the White House.

Yes, she was a book editor and was very cultivated and well educated. They both were. But Bunny Mellon and President Kennedy also deserve due credit.

Here is a "Garden Rant" by a horticulturalist debunking the myths and rumors surrounding Melania Trump's changes. https://gardenrant.com/2022/04/white-house-gardens-this-week-melania-myths-get-debunked.html

And I just learned from it that some of these falsehoods were perpetrated on the Twitter account of one Michael Beschloss, author, who dubs himself NBC's Presidential Historian (he has an MBA and has written many popular books about history).