ScottsMiracle-Gro is donating $1 million to the National Park Service in the form of money and a special blend of grass to help restore the White House’s South Lawn.
That lawn suffered damage during the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 event.
To restore the lawn, ScottsMiracle-Gro will help install sod and overseed it with a special blend of grass picked out by President Trump, the company said in a release this month.
“The president knows a lot about grass. I think his history and past are with golf courses. It was really interesting to watch our tour scientists and President Trump talk through each of these,” ScottsMiracle-Gro Chief Operating Officer Nate Baxter told Fox Business.
The blend of tall fescue grass and Kentucky bluegrass will produce durable grass tolerant of heat and disease, ScottsMiracle-Gro said. The company expects the South Lawn to be fully restored by next spring, according to Fox Business.
White House representatives said the $1 million is a private donation and that no taxpayer funds were being used on the restoration work, according to The Washington Post.
ScottsMiracle-Gro has made donations on both sides of the political aisle via individuals and affiliates. The Ohio-based company donated $500,000 to the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC in the 2024 election, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit Open Secrets.
Some are skeptical of the nature of ScottMiracle-Gro’s lawn donation.
Jordan Libowitz, spokesman for the nonprofit government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post that “major corporations generally don’t do things out of the goodness of their heart” and speculated that the move could be connected to lawsuits over weedkiller Roundup.
Roundup is manufactured by German multinational corporation Bayer. Some Roundup brand products, which are marketed and distributed by ScottsMiracle-Gro, contain glyphosate, a chemical that has been the subject of lawsuits from people alleging exposure to it gave them cancer.
In 2021, ScottsMiracle-Gro said in a release that it was not party to the legal affairs over Roundup.
