The newly renovated Rose Garden will be among the areas visitors will tour this week during the White House 2026 Spring Garden Tour. (Official White House Photo by Abe McNatt)
First Lady Melania Trump announced Friday the White House will open its historic gardens and grounds to visitors during the 2026 Spring Garden Tours. The grounds will be open Saturday, April 18, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 19, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., according to the White House.
Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the South Lawn of the White House, the Rose Garden and the White House Kitchen Garden. Not on the tour is the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, located south of where the East Colonnade once stood. It was torn out when the East Wing was demolished last October to make way for Donald Trump’s proposed ballroom.
This event is free and open to the public. A ticket is required for all attendees, including small children. The National Park Service will distribute free, timed tickets at a tent outside the White House Visitor Center each day of the tours beginning at 8:30 a.m. The White House Visitor Center is located at 1450 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20004, near the intersection of 15th Street and E Street Northwest.
The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.
March 20, 2026 – Barron Trump turns 20 years old on Friday, March 20, and sources close to First Lady Melania and President Donald Trump’s youngest son tell People how he’s preparing for his “next phase” of life—which may involve treading over a few of his father’s footsteps. Read more
March 19, 2026 – President Trump is seeking to lower the profile of his mass deportation effort, and has directed his top advisers to adopt a new approach on one of his central campaign promises, according to people familiar with the matter. In conversations with top advisers and his wife Melania, Trump has become convinced that some of his administration’s deportation policies have gone too far. Read more
March 19, 2026 – The federal Commission of Fine Arts has taken issue with plans for a new 33,000-square-foot security screening center for White House visitors, saying the proposed facility is too big and not beautiful enough. Read more
March 19, 2026 – First Lady Melania Trump picked up the phone. And in a White House where every gesture carries meaning, insiders say that call spoke volumes. Read more
March 19, 2026 – Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, envisioned art as being a fundamental part of the $800 million Obama Presidential Center when it opens on Juneteenth after 10 years of planning and construction. Read more
March 19, 2026 – As luck would have it, the Jacqueline Kennedy first ladies namesake cattleya orchid bloomed in time for an appearance by Arthur Chadwick of the Virginia-based Chadwick & Son Orchids on WRIC. View here
From the United Nations General Assembly in September, First Lady Melania Trump invites the spouses of global leaders to join her in the formation of Fostering the Future Together, a coalition to enhance the well-being of children through the promotion of education, innovation and technology. (Photo: The White House)
March 19, 2026 – First Lady Melania Trump will host leaders from 45 nations and 28 technology organizations in a first-of-its-kind summit next week to discuss how a global coalition can empower children through education and technology, the White House announced on Thursday. Read more
March 18, 2026 – Monica joins the show to set the record straight: How she handled imagined and real controversy between herself and Brandy, why it’s important to play nice with exes, and what she and Michelle Obama believe is most important to understand before becoming a mom. View here
March 18, 2026 – A closed-door White House cultural event last month began with the Tony-nominated Broadway star Laura Osnes singing “America the Beautiful.” A few minutes earlier, a painter named Johan Andersson had placed an enormous portrait of the first lady, Melania Trump, on an easel at the front of the room. Read more
March 16, 2026 – Melania Trump’s self-titled documentary may have been more than a mediocre movie: It’s also the grounds for questioning whether Amazon violated federal anti-bribery laws. Read more Read the letter from members of Congress
Lewis L. Gould is recognized as the “father” of First Ladies Studies and has established through the First Ladies Association for Research and Education a grant in his name that will help fund projects making primary source material more accessible.
March 16, 2026 – For scholars studying America’s first ladies, especially the lesser-known women, the work has often been accompanied with frustration in their attempts to unearth hard-to-find sources to help tell fuller stories of presidential spouses. Read more
March 15, 2026 – Even when he’s off duty from Oscars hosting duties, Jimmy Kimmel is eager to use the stage to get political. While presenting the best documentary short award at the 98th Academy Awards Sunday, March 15, the late-night host and four-time Oscars emcee took the opportunity to sound off on the media landscape amid the Trump administration. Read more
March 14, 2026 – “If you are my mum, why can’t I remember you?” Yuri, four, asked the woman in the Moscow hotel room. “Why weren’t you with us?”
“You were stolen from me,” Olga tried to explain tearfully. “It wasn’t my choice.”
Yuri is thought to be the youngest child to be returned so far of the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russians. Last month, however, Yuri and Anastasia, now four and six, along with three siblings from another family, aged four, six and seven, became the first children abducted from the Kherson Regional Children’s Home to be returned to their parents — with the unlikely help of the first lady of the U.S., Melania Trump. Read more
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