Washington ? First lady Laura Bush, showing off the White House gardens Friday, recounted the heartbreak she felt walking through them after the Sept. 11 attacks and the comfort they provided later.

The gardens are open to the public this weekend.

“These grounds have given solace to me, and I know to President Bush,” the first lady said from the White House’s East Garden.

Mrs. Bush issued the annual invitation for the White House garden tours on a day as sunny and clear as that of Sept. 11, 2001. Unlike the president, who was in Florida that day, Mrs. Bush was at the executive mansion and was evacuated with the staff after the hijacked aircraft hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“I remember what it was like that morning as I left,” Mrs. Bush said. “And then to come back late that evening to the White House after that day was especially heartbreaking.”

A total of 12,600 tickets are to be distributed for today’s and Sunday’s White House garden tours on the oldest continually maintained landscape in the United States.

John Adams, the first occupant of the White House, ordered a garden turned up, Thomas Jefferson made plans for planting native trees and John Quincy Adams in the 1820s formally established a gardening program at the White House.

Shortly after Mrs. Bush met with reporters, her husband and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a news conference in the nearby Rose Garden.

First lady Laura Bush gives a tour of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden Friday at the White House.

Former President Nixon’s wife, Pat Nixon, first opened the gardens to the public in 1972.

The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, where Mrs. Bush spoke, is based on a traditional 18th century American garden and features tulips and grape hyacinth. White House chefs regularly use rosemary, thyme and other herbs planted there.

A goldfish pond and a Stayman Winesap apple tree for climbing are the highlights of the third garden, the Children’s Garden, on the South Grounds.

Footprints and handprints of presidents’ children and grandchildren are embedded in the paved pathway of the Children’s Garden.