After the Washington Post ran a front-page photo of President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu sitting in front of the Oval Office fireplace on February 4, careful reader Thomas M. Sneeringer fired off a letter to the editor. “It appears the fireplace mantel in the Oval Office has been subjected to President Donald Trump’s Midas touch,” he wrote. Sneeringer observed that the spray of Swedish ivy that has adorned the mantle for more than half a century had vanished, replaced by what he speculated might be… golf trophies?
“I was instantly offended and instantly understood how it happened,” Sneeringer told me in an interview. “It was just so consistent about what we know about Trump’s taste.”
He knew that the missing ivy was no ordinary plant. Irish ambassador Thomas J. Kiernan had given it to President John F. Kennedy as a gift in 1961, and ever since it has been a consistent backdrop to some of the most famous White House meetings. Back in 1984, during the Reagan administration, Kurt Anderson wrote a tribute to “The Plant” in Time magazine:
“The Oval Office may be the headiest place in America. When the President, sitting in his desk chair at the southern tip of the Oval, stares dead ahead to the far wall, he sees The Plant. Anywhere else it would be a robust but unremarkable Swedish ivy. But there on the marble mantelpiece, day after consequential day, it basks in the power and the glory. No matter who has been inaugurated since 1961, The Plant has always stayed…The Swedish ivy, given its potential for leaks, is an Administration team player first and last.”
The hardy plant’s scalloped green leaves are center stage in photos of Ronald Reagan meeting Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush schmoozing with Bruce Willis and Nelson Mandela, and Jimmy Carter conferring with Yitzhak Rabin or having lunch with his wife Rosalynn. Nelson Shanks painted Bill Clinton leaning next to the ivy in his official presidential portrait.
The plant survived Trump’s first term, and it was even there to bear witness to that awkward meeting between Trump and Joe Biden after the 2024 election.
But no more.
So where is it now? The White House did not respond to several inquiries about the plant’s whereabouts or the gold statues that replaced it.
Like so many things that Trump and his DOGE team are heedlessly destroying, the Oval Office ivy has a constituency that may not be immediately obvious to those wielding the chainsaws. With its own Instagram account and generations of progeny that even Elon Musk can’t rival, the humble houseplant enjoys a cult following.
Not really an ivy but closer to mint, and native to South Africa, not Sweden, Plectranthus verticillatus grows like a weed, making it well-suited to sharing. White House staffers over the years have given away clippings to visitors, interns, and many other lucky beneficiaries. Those gifted with a clipping have in turn passed along clippings to others. I have one that came from the Clinton Oval Office, and now my daughter has its offspring.
Journalist Gabriela Riccardi got her cuttings by way of a White House official who convened a sendoff for her current and former staff at the end of Obama’s second term. As a parting gift, the official gave away cuttings from the Oval Office mother plant. Riccardi’s co-worker at the Atlantic scored one, and in turn shared clippings with two friends, one of whom passed a stem on to Riccardi. She told the story in Quartz in 2023:
“The staff gift came with legacy. It came with gravitas. And it came with just one request: Grow the plant yourself, then pass a cutting of it on to someone else. In that way, the ivy would spread from person to person, a symbol of the connection between a government and its people.”
During Covid, Riccardi’s small cutting had wildly proliferated, so she decided to do something useful with the excess. She raffled off five clippings to anyone who donated $10 to When We All Vote, the civic group started by Michelle Obama to increase voter participation. The plants were so sought after that Riccardi raised more than $2,200. She was unaware that the original plant had recently gone MIA. “It’s a heartbreaker to hear that it’s not there anymore,” she told me after I gave her the bad news. “I think it’s just such a beautiful tradition.”
Riccardi and Sneeringer hope that the original plant has not been abandoned but is only in exile, being nurtured nearby until a more tradition-conscious president returns to the Oval Office.
Back in 1984, Kurt Anderson had interviewed Dale Haney, then the Supervisory White House Horticulturalist in charge of spritzing and pruning the country’s most famous houseplant. Haney reverently dubbed his charge “amazing” for its resilience and resistance to pests. In 2008, he ascended to the job of White House grounds superintendent, and in 2022, the Bidens celebrated his 50 years of White House service with a photo with them and their dog, Commander. (A year later, Haney was immortalized in another photo when a tourist witnessed the dog bite Haney on the arm.) Haney picked out this year’s White House Christmas tree, but the press office did not respond to an email asking whether he still works there.
Sneeringer hopes he does, as Haney seems like someone who’d orchestrate an ivy rescue mission. “Wouldn’t it be great if he was keeping it somewhere?” he asked hopefully.
With all the terrible things happening in the country right now, Sneeringer admits that complaining about the missing ivy may seem “sort of petty.” But he sees the plant as much more than White House décor. The ivy, he told me, “symbolized to me continuity and stability and all the things we value about how we change power in the country.”
For him, the plant’s disappearance is emblematic of Trump’s assault on the federal government. “He’s completely unconcerned that this represents a break from tradition,” he said. “Or maybe no one bothered to tell him.”
