page_title: Rachel Lambert Mellon
section_title: Gardening career
hierarchical_section_title: Rachel Lambert Mellon / Gardening career
caption_attribution_description: English: 171. Rose Garden; View looking NW - White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC
context_page_description: Rachel Lambert Mellon, often known as 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. Mellon was the second wife of philanthropist and horse breeder Paul Mellon.
context_section_description: Although she had no formal training, Mellon read widely in horticulture and made contributions to several landmark gardens. Her interests in gardening were first cultivated while watching Olmsted Brothers gardeners tend her family's New Jersey home. Mellon amassed a large collection of horticultural books and was regarded as an authority on American horticulture. Her work was strongly influenced by French gardeners André Le Nôtre and Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie.
  Mellon designed landscapes for many of the Mellons' properties, including the French-inspired gardens of their estate, Oak Spring Farms. A longtime friendship with the Kennedy family was initiated by a 1958 visit to Oak Spring Farms by Jacqueline Kennedy, whom Mellon later advised on fine arts and antiques during the Kennedy White House restoration.
  In 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked Mellon to redesign the White House Rose Garden. Mellon created more open space for public ceremonies and introduced American species of plants, as well as Magnolia soulangeana. She next began to work on the White House's East Garden, but her work was interrupted by Kennedy's assassination. After his funeral, for which Mellon arranged flowers, Lady Bird Johnson asked Mellon to resume her work on the White House grounds.
  After Jacqueline Kennedy left the White House, Mellon was asked to design landscapes for Kennedy's home in Martha's Vineyard, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and River Farm, the headquarters of the American Horticultural Society. In France, Mellon created a landscape design for the home of Hubert de Givenchy and assisted with a restoration of the potager du Roi in Versailles.
caption: The White House Rose Garden after Mellon's landscaping
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