3595462852690070154 New butterfly gardens added to five Hoover parks; here’s why — Members of the Leadership Hoover class of 2025-2026 pose with a completed butterfly garden at Hemming Park. (Ryan Cavender)

Members of the 2024-2025 class of Leadership Hoover have been busy adding butterfly gardens to parks throughout the city of Hoover.

Our project concept started with getting more art visible in Hoover, and so we targeted art in the parks. Someone had an idea to create butterfly installations, and we expanded that concept to go beyond just colorful butterfly art in the parks to include promotion of pollinator gardens.
Ryan Cavender, member of 2024-2025 Leadership Hoover class

Members of the group behind the gardens are Daniel Diaz, Danielle Crowder, Deidre Williams, Cory Guillory, Carita Venable, Thomas Fox, Makinta Holloway, Erin Sapp, Valecia Williams, Ashley Waid, Dana Henson and Ryan Cavender.

The team hosted a booth at Celebrate Hoover Day, where they passed out pollinator seed packs and encouraged folks to sprinkle them around the butterfly gardens.

868972459920231776 New butterfly gardens added to five Hoover parks; here’s why — Members of the butterfly garden group of Leadership Hoover hosted a table to distribute seeds for good pollinator plants. (Ryan Cavender)

There are five gardens currently, with plans to collaborate with a local Girl Scout troop to create another at Inverness Nature Park.

See them for yourself at these locations:

Cahaba Riverchase Greenway
Veterans Park
Hemming Park
Loch Haven Park
Blue Ridge Park

E96E3F37 C993 402B 8FDF 83818F5B1315 New butterfly gardens added to five Hoover parks; here’s why — There are five parks in Hoover where there are official butterfly Gardens: (clockwise from top right) Veterans Park, Blue Ridge Park, Loch Haven Park, Hemming Park and Cahaba Riverchase Greenway. (Ryan Cavender)

How do butterfly gardens help our pollinators?

Butterfly gardens are more than just pretty flowers for passersby to admire.

(UAB Sustainability) — UAB Garden. Orange spotted butterfly is pollinating a pink flower, 2019.

These areas provide certain plants to accommodate butterfly caterpillars’ picky food preferences. You might recognize some of these plants, which include:

Black cherry
Wild plum
Clover
Dill
Queen Anne’s lace
Dogwood
Milkweed

The Alabama Cooperative Extension System has a printable list of suggested plants for caterpillars on their website.

Shrubs in these gardens also provide butterflies shelter and protection, and they are a great place for caterpillars to start forming their “chrysalis,” or the hard shell in which they start to become butterflies.

Birmingham, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, virtual tours — Woodland Phlox is a perennial plant native to Alabama. (Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens)

Once they emerge as fully-grown butterflies, they’ll start seeking flowers with rich nectar. Some great plants for that are:

Azalea
Cosmos
Marigold
Zinnia
Pansy
Primrose
Dandelion

Alabama Extension also includes a list of these flowers on their website that includes the flower color and what time of year they bloom.

Now you have everything you need to start a butterfly garden in your very own backyard. Time to get planting!
What other locations in Hoover could use a butterfly garden? Do you have one of your own? Let us know on Facebook and Instagram by tagging @bhamnow!