On the most recent episode of Working, Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to Jim Adams, supervisory horticulturist at the White House.

Adams has been at the White House for most of the Obama administration, overseeing a team of gardeners who tend to the grounds ‘round the clock, every day of the year. In this episode, he goes into detail about what it takes to manage a property that is also a national park, with some trees dating back hundreds of years. He also discusses how he became a horticulturist at the nation’s capital.

And in this episode’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Adams talks with Brogan about preparing the White House grounds for large annual events such as the White House Easter egg roll and Fourth of July. How do you prep a national park for television? And how do horticulturists keep these traditions going?

Jacob Brogan: You’re listening to Working, the podcast about what people do all day. I’m Jacob Brogan. This season on Working we’ve been visiting the White House, chatting with some of the people who operate in and around the building about the particulars of their jobs. For this, our final episode of the season, we wanted to take a step back to look outside the building itself. Believe it or not, the White House is situated in a National Park. And rangers with the Park Service maintain the grounds.

We spoke with one of them, Jim Adams, who’s the supervisory horticulturalist for the White House. Adams and his team look after a host of issues from weeding and pruning to seasonal planting and snow removal. We sat with him for a bit in the White House’s Kennedy Garden as planes flew overhead and the occasional truck drove past. There were enough insects buzzing in the air that Adams had to have bug spray brought out to keep the tiger mosquitoes off of us.

But for all of that, it was a strikingly serene space, one that clearly takes a great deal of effort to maintain. Adams told us about some of those tasks and described the twists and turns of his own life that put him in a position to do them. He also went through his typical day to the extent that he has one and discussed his encounters with the presidential dogs as well as some of the other animals that call the grounds home. Then in a Slate Plus extra, Adams tells us about setting up the annual White House Egg Roll and other big events.

Speaking of Slate Plus, there’s never been a better time to sign up for Slate Plus. For Slate’s 20th anniversary, for a limited time, we’re offering 30% off an annual membership. That’s just $35 for a year of Slate Plus with bonus segments of this and other Slate podcasts every week and a lot more - Slate Academies and all kinds of stuff. So, if you haven’t joined Slate Plus yet, sign up before this offer goes away at slate.com/workingplus. And you can get a free two-week trial there at that URL, slate.com/workingplus.

Brogan: So, what is your name, and what do you do?

Jim Adams: My name is Jim Adams. I’m supervisory horticulturalist for the White House Division in the Office of the National Park Service Liaison to the White House.

Brogan: So, what does that entail? What are your actual responsibilities?

Adams: A long title, a lot of responsibilities. So, our division is responsible for all of the horticulture within the 18 acres of the White House grounds and also just on the outside on the sidewalks on the north and south side and the east side and everything inside the fence.

So, all horticultural assets for the White House fall under our jurisdiction.

Brogan: So, these are in many cases plants that have been here through multiple presidential administrations.

When we were walking out here earlier, you pointed to some that are centuries old even. You showed us a tree that Andrew Jackson had planted. You, yourself, have not been here that long. How long have you been at the White House?

Adams: I’ve been here seven years. So, I started right after this administration. And I’m actually one of the newer guys on the crew.

Some of the crewmembers have been here 45 years. I’ve been here seven. And, yes, we do maintain trees that are centuries old, many of which we don’t even know how old they are. They predate any record. And we take care of everything from those to the seasonal plantings that come in and out to the lawn to the houseplants. So, we do it all.

Brogan: What made you get into that kind of line of work in the first place?

Adams: That’s pretty much all I’ve ever wanted to do. I’ve always loved gardening, always loved being outside working with plants. I’ve done it my whole life.

Brogan: What was your first gardening experience? What was your first garden like?

Adams: Kind of taking over my parents’ garden as a kid. So, you know, they had a landscape garden around their suburban Detroit home. And I kind of took it over. And I think my parents thought it was a chore for me, you know, to weed it and work out there, but ended up really loving it and expanding and expanding and expanding until I moved away from home and had to rein it all in for them. So, yeah, I’ve been gardening since a kid.

Brogan: Were you a horticulturist before this?

Adams: Yes. Yes. My whole professional career, I’ve been a horticulturist. I was at the National Arboretum for 12 1/2 years. After that, I was the head horticulturist for the British Ambassador to the United States. So, left the American government, worked for the British for a few years, and then came here.

Brogan: How did you end up here at the White House then?

Adams: Some friends of mine called and said, “Did you see what was listed in USA Jobs?” And I said, “No.” And they said, “Well, there’s the supervisory horticulturist for the White House for the Park Service,” a job that I’ve known existed for many years.

But jobs here don’t turn over very much. When I heard it was open, it was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. They said, “It closes in two days.” So, I got my application in in two days’ time.

Brogan: So, positions like this one are not political appointments then.

Adams: Correct. So, this position - the National Park Service staff serves the presidency through administrations. So, we serve every president.

Brogan: Mm-hmm. How large is your staff. How many people do you work with?

Adams: Total staff is 29. And the people that do the day-to-day gardening here are 12.

Brogan: And is that through season in, season out?

Adams: Yes. There’s someone from the National Park Service staff onsite 365 days of the year no matter what the weather. We’re here on holidays. We’re here on federal holidays, every holiday throughout snowstorms. Yeah. We’re here every day.

Brogan: And those staff members are planting, they’re watering, they’re pruning.

Adams: So, yeah. So, the garden staff – we don’t just do the gardening here. We do take care of some of the facility because the grounds of the White House is a National Park as well as the house itself.

And so, because we are onsite, we’re often called to do things that are beyond gardening tasks. We do everything from mowing, fertilizing, watering the lawns, caring for the trees, the shrubs, the seasonal plantings. But we also have staff - like we have a mechanic, who repairs our gardening equipment. We have an electrician because we take care of the lights on the property. We do all the snow removal. You know, sometimes we have to clean drains. And we take care of the roadways and all the paving.

There’s a lot of paving around the grounds, most of it historic. So, we have masons that do that.

Brogan: So, technically, all of this falls under horticulture?

Adams: It falls under me. Yeah. Most of our work is gardening work, but our job is to keep the White House grounds beautiful.

Brogan: In the seven years you’ve been here, have you found a favorite spot on the grounds?

Adams: One spot? That’s a hard one. I like lots of spots on the grounds.

Yikes. One spot. Well, I don’t really sit and savor spots on the grounds. They’re all a matter of work and something that we do for others. On a normal day, I wouldn’t think to sit in this garden. Of the formal gardens, I really like this garden, the Kennedy Garden.

Brogan: Can you tell us a little about where we are?

Adams: Yeah. So, we’re in the Kennedy Garden right now. This was a garden that was put in in the Johnson Administration and named for Jacqueline Kennedy, who had plans to renovate this garden and never was able to see them through.

So, Mrs. Johnson had this renovated and named it after her. So, we’re sitting in an arbor right now that was designed by I. M. Pei. It has been renovated since I. M. Pei put it in in 1964. The magnolia that we’re sitting beneath lost a limb I believe in 1993 and damaged it. So, it had to be repaired. But what I like about this garden is that it does have a mix of formality and some casual plantings to it. You don’t see a whole lot of formal plantings like we can see now with these topiary holly hedges on either side.

And we have the antique garden furniture set about. And this is all very formal, but then we have a very casual planting along the Colonnade so that visitors that come into the White House can look in and see something kind of very floriferous and flowery.

Brogan: It seems like a lot of these spaces, these gardens, are governed by traditions that date back decades. How much of your work is about just maintaining and preserving those traditions? And how much is about kind of bringing something new, shaking things up?

Adams: Our job as the National Park Service is to preserve the historic cultural landscape of the White House. We follow the landscape design that was set forth by the Olmsted Brothers in the Roosevelt Administration. Franklin Roosevelt had the Olmsted Brothers come in and look at the grounds and gave a long-term plan for them. And they designed the south roadway the way it is now. They were the ones who said that the formal, fussy gardens should be up close to the house, and the rest should be more pastoral with almost woodland-like edges by the fences down there.

And they were the ones that set the historic view that goes from the Blue Room balcony all the way to the Jefferson Monument and had that view preserved with a 200-foot swath so that that view is always maintained. So, we follow that historic cultural landscape. However, because this is someone’s home, the Park Service also has to give a pleasant experience to the families that live here. No matter who they are, it is their home and it’s their yard, quote-unquote.

So, it’s their space. So, there are changes that happen that the family desires, you know, things as long ago as President Eisenhower putting in the first putting green, a presidential putting green; the Kennedy Garden that we’re in now; and the Rose Garden that the Kennedy Administration put in in 1962. The Obamas put in the swing set outside the Oval Office. Mrs. Obama put in the Kitchen Garden. So, we have to support what they want to do.

And we happily do that and support whatever the agenda of the current administration is. So, it’s a fine line we walk to preserve that historic cultural landscape and also make it personal for the First Family.

Brogan: Do you and your staff work on that Kitchen Garden that Michelle Obama put in? Yeah. The First Lady wanted to put this garden in and wasn’t sure if she could do it because it is a National Park and a historic landscape and approached the National Park Service.

And we said, “Yes.” And it was very important for the First Lady for it to be near the public. So, we put it close to the fence. And when you look at the White House grounds, they definitely slopes down to the south, one of the reasons why the site was chosen for the house. So, we needed a fairly flat area, so flat, close to the south fence line. And then they kept it out of the historic view. We honored the historic view from the south fence line. And so it was put just to the west just out of that historic view, but still the public could see it, and it was on a fairly flat surface.

So, it was a joint effort, and we were happy to support her. And I think the Kitchen Garden has been an interesting and fun project for our staff because so many of the gardens, as you said, have been here such a long time, and this was something new. And I think some of the staff was unsure whether this would or could be successful. And it hadn’t been done, so no one really knew how to do it. So, we worked with them. And I think a lot of the staff found it to be: the more we went, the more interesting it was and more fun.

And it was different because, like I said, so much of this has been done for so long. It was something different.

Brogan: A typical day for you?

Adams: I don’t think there is a typical day here. The calendar changes so quickly. And we don’t only react and take care of what the house needs are, but we also have to react to the weather. I could plan to change a garden’s seasonal displays over one week, and it pours rain and we can’t.

We have to get our work done around the President’s schedule. We have to get our work done around the house schedule. We have to get our work done around the weather as well. And it’s a lot of juggling. You have to be very flexible to work here. All of our staff has to be very flexible. You know, when we interview people to come work here, we ask about their flexibility. If you want a job where you know what you’re going to do that day and you’re going to come in and get it done every day, this is not the job for you. So, you have to be incredibly flexible to work here.

Brogan: It’s like journalism. When you’re dealing with or preparing to deal with the weather, do you get special intel from meteorological services? Or do you have to check your phone like all the rest of us?

Adam: AccuWeather. AccuWeather. I religiously read the Capital Weather Gang, AccuWeather, as many weather source and actually all the local news because it does vary. I’m on weather a lot. I’m on weather a lot. Yes.

Brogan: When do you get started in the morning? When do you arrive?

Adams: Well, no. I get started before I arrive. We’re on shifts here. The first person arrives at 5:30. The last person arrives at 7:30. So, we can have coverage from 5:30 till 4:00 on the grounds. My day starts when I wake up at 5:00 a.m. right away to any emails that came in overnight. I’m available for my staff beginning 5:00 a.m. unless there’s an emergency. So, I basically start my day when I wake up. And then I’m here onsite by 7:00 a.m. And, technically, I could leave at 3:30, but rarely do I leave here on time.

Brogan: One of the things that we’ve heard from a lot of White House people while doing this series is that they never really get to sign off or check out. Do you get to logoff at the end of the day? Or are you still checking emails?

Adams: No. I stop checking emails sometime mid evening. It’s like, OK. This is just a government email coming out, or it’s someone like who’s working late just cleaning things up that doesn’t need a response right away. But I do check email through the evening, and then but my phone is always on.

I’ve had calls in the middle of the night that there’s been a broken irrigation line, a tree limb has fallen, a tree has fallen. So, my phone is on all night. So, in case of an emergency, the Usher’s Office, Secret Service know that I’m reachable at all times. So, I don’t turn the phone off. I do make sure that I get at least one vacation a year where I turn it off and I can leave it at home. You need that. Then I have someone acting for me, who then does have his on 24/7.

Brogan: When you do look at your email first thing in the morning, what kinds of requests or issues are you dealing with at that time?

Adams: Typically, it’s a change of something for the day, in the schedule for the day, or confirmation that something’s coming up in that day. “Can you confirm that this will happen?” So, it’s usually those types of emails, and there’s a lot of them, or a request for a meeting that day. Yeah.

Brogan: Yeah. You are wearing a Park Ranger uniform. Do you wear that every day?

Adams: I do. Sometimes if I have business offsite that I don’t need to be in the uniform, I don’t. Yeah.

Brogan: So, was that issued to you when you started?

Adams: Yep.

Brogan: How many of them do you have?

Adams: I just got a new shipment, so I have a lot because we have a dress uniform. I have field uniforms because I’m technically the highest-ranking Park Service person here on the grounds, but I don’t sit in my office.

So, to be in a dress uniform doesn’t work for me. So, I wear a field uniform. In the course of a day, besides answering emails, I will be writing memos; I will be doing personnel actions; I will be in meetings with people from all agencies, all levels; and I will be also outside watering, weeding, mowing, weed-whipping, emptying trash. So, I could be doing any of those in the course of a day.

Brogan: Is there anything that you take special pleasure in in this job?

Adams: Well, I love weeding. So, I love it. Whether it be here or at home, weeding is my favorite gardening task. So because even if I have a few minutes, I know I can make something look better by pulling a few weeds. It sounds crazy, but…

Brogan: You’re a person who clearly loves plants and spent a lot of your life in gardens. When you are on your way to do some other tasks, do you ever find that you’re kind of drawn in by a weed that has to be picked or something?

Adams: Oh, yeah. No, no. I often have weeds in my pocket.

On the way to a meeting, on the way to and from, you know, inside, I will stop and weed. Yeah. No. I bet probably anybody here could tell you that. Yeah.

Brogan: What do you look out for most when you’re walking the grounds?

Adams: A weed that’s going to seed. Because if they go to seed, then you’ve got problems next year. So, you want to beat the weeds that are going to seed. So, if they’re something that’s not in seed, it can wait till the next time. But if something’s in seed or, you know, flower or going to seed, I try to get it up.

* * *

Brogan: You’ve been listening to White House horticulturalist, Jim Adams.

In the section coming up, Adams tells us about the international reverberations of his work on the White House grounds.

Brogan: Did your responsibilities and your staff’s responsibilities change as the seasons do?

Adams: Mm-hmm.

Brogan: Are there different things that you have to look out for or different things you have to prepare for with those shifts?

Adams: Yeah. Absolutely. Our busiest season is the summer because our gardens are a little bit different from most gardens.

We don’t just plant them in the spring and leave them. Our gardens have to look good all the time. So, we can’t afford to have something that is not in flower, that’s not showy. So, for instance, you can’t plant lilies and have them out in your garden and then, when they’re done flowering, you just deadhead them and leave the foliage for the rest of the because: a) they’re not that big, and we can’t afford it; and b) eyes of the world are on our gardens all the time. And so we are constantly changing them out.

So, when the lilies are done, they go out and something else comes in. Because we make them as showy as possible, we don’t necessarily give them the best cultural requirements. So, something that requires full sun, we will put in a lightly shaded situation because it looks so good at the time. They’re all about how they look. So, those things that do well in full sun will eventually start declining. So, they will come out. So, we are constantly changing our gardens around and around and around throughout the growing season. I would say we’re bringing something in and out every week, but definitely every two weeks.

And when you plant something new, you have to get it established. So, there’s lots of watering and weeding and pruning. And that will go on up until right now, so mid-September, when the summer gardens come out and we’ll change it over for a fall display. And it’ll be lots and lots of mums, lots of chrysanthemums, fall asters, fall salvias, and a few other fall-blooming annuals that look really nice through a light frost, that could take a light frost. And those will stay in until right about the first week of November.

And then once Thanksgiving comes, it’s Christmas. And we set up all the Christmas trees and all the outdoor Christmas decorations, so like all the wreaths and the garlands on the gates and the exterior of the house. So, we are always here the Friday after Thanksgiving and work to set up Christmas trees and decorations. And then throughout Christmas, we’re really busy with actually leaf season, getting the leaves up that have fallen, and continuing to maintain Christmas trees. So, we have to keep them watered.

We have to keep them straight. And once they’re decorated and start to dry up a little bit, sometimes they lean. So, we’re running in the house constantly to straighten trees, to move trees, keeping them watered. So, Christmas is a busy season for us. And right around that same time is snow season.

Brogan: I was going to ask. We’ve been battered during your time here by some pretty brutal snowfalls, including -

Adams: Snowmageddon.

Brogan: Yeah. And this year as well – we had one in January or February. How does that kind of event affect your work?

Adams: It affects it quite a bit because – well, actually, when I took this job, one thing that I didn’t like about it was the snow removal. I’m from Michigan. I have no problem with snow removal. I can do it, but I always said, “I’m a horticulturist. I don’t need to be removing snow. I have plenty to do in winter because there’s always stuff to do.” And then someone said, “Aw, we don’t get that much snow here.”

And then 2009-10, we had a major snowstorm in December of ‘09, which was really rare, and then the two back-to-back storms in February.

But we do all the snow removal on the grounds, me and my crew, and mostly my crew. No. I do it too, but they do a lot. And it’s a lot of work because this place never shuts down. Like we’re not a park that can say, “OK. We’re going to close our gates. And when it’s over, we’re going to clean it up and we’re going to open again.” We’re open. We’re open 24/7. And we always have to be prepared for a motorcade.

We always have to be prepared for, you know, senior staff coming in and out of our gates.

Brogan: You’re cleaning the snow from the moment it starts falling then, I assume.

Adams: The minute we let it accumulate to about maybe a quarter inch, maybe a half inch if it’s coming fast. And once that’s there, we clear until it’s over.

Brogan: You must have a lot of equipment on hand.

Adams: We have a lot of equipment on hand for the roadways, but a lot of the areas that you see around you now, like in these gardens, is by hand. We do use some snow blowers where we can, but there’s a lot of areas we can’t.

So, really once it starts to accumulate until the storm is over and it’s cleaned up, we are out here pushing snow whether it be by equipment or by hand. And it’s all hands on deck for it.

Brogan: The uniform you’re wearing right now is at least partially wool, right? Is that what you wear when you’re out shoveling snow?

Adams: Yep. Yep, partially wool or partially polyester. Yep. Both are warm materials, and they keep you warm.

Brogan: Yeah. What about other kinds of special events, like during the government shutdown, for example? Did you have staff on hand here?

Adams: Yeah. Like most federal agencies, we had some emergency employees that worked. We basically kept things alive. We kept the plants alive. We didn’t mow. We didn’t collect leaves. We didn’t weed. Well, I can’t pass weeds. But no. But we didn’t have any major weeding projects, no collecting leaves, no mowing, no pruning. It was basically for health and safety.

So, we also emptied trash throughout the complex. So, that’s a health and safety issue. So, we emptied trash and kept sidewalks clear for safety issues to make sure that inside the fence the workers and the public on Pennsylvania Avenue were not at risk from collecting leaves or anything. So, we kept those clean, and we kept the plants alive.

Brogan: Do you ever interact with the presidential pets? I know that they’re out here on the ground.

Adams: Well, I do. Yes, they are out on the grounds quite a bit.

Dale Haney, who is the Superintendent of Grounds, who is our coworker who works for the executive residents, one of his duties is to watch over the pets. So, oftentimes Dale and I will be walking the grounds and discussing things - you know, what has to get done, talking about events, you know, doing some planning - and the dogs are there. Occasionally, one of our carts that we have that we use around the grounds, one of the dogs will jump on it, like that happened once. And I was bringing up a small Cushman load of bulbs up to this garden here, and Bo jumped on.

And I just looked at Dale. He’s like, “Go. It’s OK. Just be careful.” And it’s like, OK. And because, yeah, he drove up here with him with me on the cart and in the passenger seat. Because we work so closely with Dale, we do see the dogs quite a bit. Occasionally, you know, we’ll throw balls for them or sticks.

Brogan: Apart from the presidential pets, are there other animals on the grounds here that you see or interact with? We have some mosquitoes flying around us right now, but…

Adams: We have a lot of great animals on the grounds.

We do have a really interesting population of birds here. I can tell you, my second interview for this job when I came to the grounds, the man who hired me and Dale Haney were walking the grounds, and a Cooper’s Hawk swooped down within like two feet of us, like right in front of me, and like glided across the lawn.

Brogan: Wow.

Adams: And it kind of startled me. And so from my first visit here, I knew that we had some pretty nice birds here. We also have some interesting Woodpeckers here.

I’ve seen snipe on the grounds. About a month ago, I saw a little bird on the north grounds I’d never seen before and photographed it and looked it up. And it was an American Redstart. And we occasionally have a fox that passes through the grounds because there are foxes on the National Mall and in the parks around here, that they seem to get through the fence. And they pass through every now and again, not a whole lot but every now and again. There’s ducks. Every spring, there are ducks that nest either in Lafayette Park or on The Ellipse. And they make their way across the grounds.

And it’s not an uncommon spring to have ducks and ducklings in our fountains. And then what we do then is we put actually ramps into the fountains so that they can get out. Because they can hop up over the edge and get in the pond, but they can’t get out - into the fountain. So, we put down ramps so they can get in and out. So, yeah, there’s some fun wildlife here and lots of squirrels. They’re our biggest headache when it comes – people always ask, “What is your biggest pest problem in the Kitchen Garden?” And it’s the squirrels because they like to taste tomatoes and eat peppers and dig. And so they’re probably our biggest problem down there.

But some interesting wildlife for being in the heart of the city.

Brogan: Have you ever interacted with the First Family themselves? Is that ever part of your job?

Adams: Well, actually, three weeks ago for the anniversary of the National Park Service, my staff and I got to meet the President out in front of the Oval Office in the Rose Garden. And he thanked us and shook all of our hands. And we got a photo with him. So, we got to interact with him then. Oh. Occasionally, when we’re working in the Rose Garden, in the mornings, the President will come out and will walk past and say, “Good morning, guys. Nice job,” or, “Thanks for your work.”

And that’s pretty cool. But you don’t. That’s not something everyone can say in their job. So, occasionally. But, you know, does he come out and like talk to us and, you know, hang out? No.

But we do, you know, get to see him occasionally. And he does say, “Hello.” It’s been a privilege to be able to work with the First Lady. When she has kids in the Kitchen Garden for harvests and plantings, we help set that up. And so we’re down there with the First Lady, you know. And she’ll say, “Thanks for everything,” and, you know, “Looks great.” So, we do see them occasionally.

It’s not a daily occurrence, but it’s really an honor when we do. So, that’s my experience. I know some of my staff that has been here for many years, you know, said that there are some presidents that will come out and chat here and there - it depends on the president’s personality - and some that don’t interact at all and some that do. So, yeah, it depends on the president.

Brogan: Did you or your staff do anything else special for the Park Service anniversary?

Adams: Yeah. So, on the anniversary day itself, we set up some tables on the north grounds and passed out cupcakes to sell, you know, or birthday cakes, and gave out some information and engaged with the visitors to the White House to make sure that they knew that they were in a National Park. That’s what we did on the day of. And that was really fun, to be able to interact one-on-one with the visitors and really make sure that they knew about their National Parks and celebrate with them.

Brogan: Do you know? Why is this area or the space framed as a National Park? Or why is it classified that way?

Adams: The National Park Service has been involved with the grounds maintenance since the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. So, back around the time of the Olmsted landscape plan, we became involved in the care of the grounds. We became an official National Park during the Kennedy Administration because it’s the National Park Service mission to preserve the cultural historic national icons. And there’s nothing more iconic than the White House and the grounds.

Brogan: Mm-hmm. So, the question that we have asked almost everyone in this series: what it feels like to be working here in the last six months or so of this administration. From your perspective, though, do things feel at all different? Or is it just sort of business as usual right now?

Adams: The last six months I think has gotten busier for us. We’re here to serve the President and do whatever they need us to do for their agenda.

And I think, as they ramp up, their time is winding down, but they’re trying to make sure they accomplish everything they wanted to accomplish. So, I think the activities are picking up. So, because we’re a partner with all those activities, it’s getting busier for us as well. And I don’t expect that to change through the end of this administration or the beginning of the next. So, I just think we’re going to be, you know, probably busier than we would, say, you know, a year or two into an administration or, you know, in the middle of an administration.

Brogan: Will you and your team be involved in the transition?

Adams: Oh, yeah. We will. I have not been here for a transition, but we are here to serve this family, and we are here to serve the next family. And we will - you know, we don’t know who that is yet, and we don’t know what they’re going to want. So, we will make sure that both happen to the best of our ability.

Brogan: So, you see yourself staying in this role moving ahead?

Adams: Absolutely.

Brogan: We’re in an environment where almost every decision that gets made has huge geopolitical ramifications, huge consequences in one way or another.

Does that experience, that knowledge of all those kind of heavy, deep, powerful decisions being made shape what it’s like to kind of work these gardens?

Adams: Oh, absolutely. You know, we also know what goes on in these buildings. And like it goes into our daily planning and consciousness of how we work. Like we don’t want to be outside the Oval Office pruning the shrubs while the President’s, you know, inside meeting with world leaders. So, we get that stuff done beforehand so that it is - you know, we try to be discreet.

Mowing the center panel out on the south lawn, you know, you can only be so discreet. And we know there’s events or press conferences going on inside that our work revolves around. And also like I’ll be at home. I’ll be listening to the news, and it’ll be like, oop, there’s going to be a press conference tomorrow. Be ready for that one. And sure enough, you know, I’ll get an email. “Press conference tomorrow. Have so many chairs,” you know. So, both personally and professionally, I think I’m more aware than I used to be of what’s going on in the world because it affects what we do.

Brogan: Does it affect what you plant?

Adams: We plant our gardens to be as beautiful as they can for the President and for what’s going on here and the millions of people that see it. It’s not just for him and for what’s going on, but, you know, what we do is on the news, and it’s seen by people all around the world. And actually just now I remember, once, I was on vacation, and I was in Thailand. And I was at a hotel, watching the news.

And it was the day of the State of the Union Address, and there was a photo of the President was walking through the Rose Garden. And all I could think of was, oh, my God. My rose pruning job is being seen around the world.

I’m halfway around the world, and the job we did in the Rose Garden’s being seen. And then we have people tour the house every day. I mean they walk through the house. They see our East Colonnade. They go through the house. They look through the windows. They see our grounds. They look through the North Portico. They see our fountains. They see our shrubs.

So, you know, we’re here to make beautiful gardens to really make America proud. I don’t think there’s any public garden that’s viewed as much as this garden, and that’s how my staff and I garden them.

Brogan: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

Adams: You’re welcome. Thanks for coming.

Brogan: It was delightful. Thanks.

Adams: Thanks.

Brogan: Thanks for listening to this episode of Working. I’m Jacob Brogan. Mickey Capper and I are so grateful that we were able to share this special season of Working, Working at the White House, with you.

We’ve got more coming up that we’re excited to share, but in the meantime, if you like what we tried to do here, if you enjoyed this exploration of the sort of working cultures at the White House, we would love it if you would rate and review the show on iTunes and share your favorite episodes with people on social media. Share it with your friends in real life. You know, share it with your hairdresser, with anyone that you talk to about podcasts. Spread the word.

We would be so grateful if you would do that. We’ve loved bringing this to you, and we hope that you have loved listening to it. We would also love to hear your thoughts about the podcast. Our email address is working@slate.com. And we do listen, and we try to respond as much as possible to those messages. They mean a lot to us. You can listen to all seven seasons of the show at slate.com/working. This series, Working at the White House, was produced by me and Mickey Capper.

Mickey also edits the show. Thanks to Efim Shapiro, who has been an invaluable help throughout. Special thanks for this episode to Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles from the Park Service, who helped bring this episode together. Our executive producer is Steve Lickteig, and the chief content officer of the Panoply Network is Andy Bowers. And, again, thank you so much for listening.

* * *

Brogan: In this Slate Plus extra, Jim Adams tells us about setting up the annual White House Egg Roll and other big events on the White House grounds.

Can we talk about the big events a little? What is that process like? Say there’s a big State Visit happening or something like this.

Adams: Our biggest events that we’re involved in directly, hands down, are Easter Egg Roll and Fourth of July. And those are huge events.

The Egg Roll is done, you know, with a production company through the Visitors Office, you know, through the Administration. But it gets involved many, many, many, many people, lots of all the agencies that are involved on the complex. But we are in charge. What we have to do is get the grounds ready for these things. So, for Egg Roll, you know, it takes almost two weeks’ worth of putting up snow fence. We crowd control. There’s 35,000 people here for Egg Roll.

So, we have to, you know, basically take care of the crowd control. We also set up the Egg Roll itself. So, the main event is the Egg Roll. And where they have all these fancy characters walking around and fancy games and gymnasts and people doing - you know, celebrities doing concerts, the Egg Roll, the thing everyone comes from, is set up by us. Actually I think it’s very special because it really is kind of quaint.

We put up ropes for egg lanes, Start and Finish, you know, with a wooden post. And that’s it. And that’s something me and my staff do. So, we set up the egg lanes, which is the main event. And it seems very old fashioned, and it’s very nice. So, it’s a nice thing that we –- and, you know, that’s the first thing people coming – when they come, they come for Egg Rolls to is to do that.

Brogan: So, it sounds like there’s a certain kind of regularized procedure that you follow with something like that. Are there similar kind of rules that – and expectations and standards that come into play if you are setting up, say, a photo shoot on the grounds for a visiting head of state?

Adams: Yeah, and that’s all done through Dale Haney through, and through the Usher’s Office. We’re given a task sheet of what’s going to happen when and what we have to have ready.

Brogan: It’s like timelines and checklists.

Adams: Yep. And so the Egg Roll’s our biggest event. Fourth of July is our second biggest one.

And again, it’s crowd. Basically it’s really glamorous. It’s crowd control and trash. So, there’s a lot of people on the grounds, and we’ve got to pick up the trash. It’s a National Park, and we help everybody else get set up. I mean we have the small vehicles to get around the grounds. So, we help set up all the beverages. We help set up grills. It’s just a lot of just setup for the larger event. And we do smaller events.

If a championship team comes to the grounds, like the winners of the Super Bowl or the World Series, they’ll come. If it’s nice, they’ll have their picture taken out by the South Portico. The program will be out on the lawn, and we’ll have to set up the 750 chairs or whatever, or more. So, we set up chairs for events like that. When there’s a Rose Garden press conference, we set up the chairs for that.

And those events, there’s a large planning group that do all the planning. And then it trickles down in a task sheet for us of what needs to accomplish.