My photo of the Reflecting Pool at 8:30 a.m. on June 24, 2026.

Nobody comes to GardenRant for political news or opinion, so this is my best attempt at an apolitical, landscape-related post about the infamous Reflecting Pool. Wish me luck! Commenters, of course, will comment.  I posted political photos from my morning cycling around DC on my Facebook page and made the post public.

Visiting the Reflecting Pool on Wednesday June 24

The exact date I visited matters because the situation down there can change on a dime, I’m telling ya! As reported  here and and everywhere, fencing was installed around the Reflecting Pool on Tuesday, the day before my visit. Actually in the afternoon, according to this report.

So when I arrived Wednesday morning at 8:30, I was expecting it to look something like this AI mock-up that I bet fools the eager-to-be-fooled. But if there were really barbed wire and watch towers, I think we would have heard about it.  Pretty striking image, though, right? 

Instead, the fence is thankfully out of sight, at outer pathway instead of close to the pool.

And the water looked mostly blue! Apparently the nanobubblers and algae-vacuuming machines are doing their job.  

Bubblers and skimmers. Not sure what that whitish mass is in the water. 

Looks like algae to me but I’ve seen reports that it’s paint chips. 

It was fun speculating on these aberrations with the other Pool-watchers – lots of us on bikes, others wielding large cameras. 

Two days after my visit, access to the pool was completely fenced off and the water was green again. The story continues  

Re-imagining the Reflecting Pool

Everyone concedes that the Reflecting Pool has never worked as intended, and probably never will.  So gardeners, can you imagine doing something radically different there – say with more plants?  

Make it a garden!

This AI image popped up on my feed. It turns the space into a garden – a gaudy, super-high-maintenance and high-resource one.

Remembering that I, too, can use ChatGPT, I instructed it to remake the pool in the style of two of my gardens.

Funny thing about the image on the right. I’d asked for it to face the Washington Monument, so it just stuck the Washington behind the Lincoln! It’s either one or the other.

For this one I used the prompt “Remake the Reflecting Pool into a wildflower meadow, no water, all plants, facing the Washington Monument. Don’t show the Lincoln Memorial.” 

Anyone venture a guess as to which is more work to maintain – the pool or some type of garden?

Make it a Lake! Like Constitution Gardens 

Despite being open since 1976 in a super-prominent spot, even locals have never heard of Constitution Gardens.  So they’re surprised if they find it it on their way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or the Reflecting Pool, which is just a few feet south of it.

On my visit, Constitution Gardens looked like it always does – a green-tinged lake and nothing much else, besides some ducks.  I wondered if this lake, also concrete- lined like the Reflecting Pool, had fared any better and found out that:

During the bicentennial restoration of the Mall, Constitution Gardens was chosen as the ideal space for a quiet oasis from the bustling city.  The 52-acre park was officially dedicated in 1976. President Reagan proclaimed it a “living legacy tribute” to the Constitution on September 17, 1986 in honor of the Constitution’s bicentennial.

The environmentally unsustainable design was built in haste and on a foundation of construction fill — compromising the long-term health and viability of the trees and plantings as well as the man-made lake. Today, the lake, too shallow to be functional or ecologically friendly, is plagued by unsightly algal blooms, a dying and unsustainable fish habitat, and requires costly, labor-intensive maintenance throughout the year. The trees, which should have formed a lush mature forest over nearly 50 years, have failed to thrive, are in critical health, and many have died due to poor soil conditions.

Source – the Trust for the National Mall, which is tasked with raising funds for this and other projects on the Mall. This video shows what’s needed.

Make it a Swamp!

Now here’s an exciting image and an exciting column in the Washington Post by a climate reporter. Hope the gift link works. 

2 take-aways: 

The problem. “The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has predictably turned green again. No matter who is in office, no matter how much hydrogen peroxide is added, the shallow, sunbaked, nutrient-rich pool will remain an ideal home for the tiny green denizens of D.C.”

But there ARE examples of pools that work, and without chemicals. He cites the Webber Natural Swimming Pool in Minneapolis as “the first public natural swimming pool in North America to ditch chemicals. Since opening in 2015, the pool’s half-acre swimming zone (filtered by 7,000 aquatic plants rooted in layers of limestone and granite gravel) have welcomed thousands of people into its clean, clear water.

“Europe has taken the idea further and has more than 20,000 public and private natural swimming pools. The world’s first public natural swimming pool opened in Austria in 1990.”