Spring is in the air

And there’s plenty to see and do with winter in the rearview

Friday, March 22, 2024, Vol. 48, No. 12
By Lucas Hendrickson

We think about calendars often, especially faced with the endless list of tasks, to-dos and meetings causing our devices to ding constantly.

But we all need things to look forward to during our daily march through time and space, be it the life-improving chore we’ve been putting off due to weather or an evening you’ve waited seemingly forever for that allows you and loved ones to unplug for just a little while.

As spring arrives, April, May and June are always chock-full of those kinds of events and opportunities, and The Ledger decided to jot down a few upcoming across the Middle Tennessee region.

Home and auto care

When we finally emerge from winter’s unpredictability, we start thinking about the places we want to go and how soon we can get there. The first thing we need to check, and the one that can get neglected when it’s just too dang cold, is the vehicle that’s going to take us there.

April is National Car Care Month (as is October, but we’re focusing on spring here), and the folks at CarTalk.com put together a short list of things to remember to check once the final thaw takes place, including check your air pressure including the spare tire, checking your tires for unusual wear or damage, touching up paint chips with kit, adding washer fluid and changing wipers if needed, and storing that snow brush till winter and doing a happy dance. (That’s literally on their list.) (www.cartalk.com/cars-content/national-car-care-month)

While we’re talking about things to extend the life and enjoyment of your vehicle, let’s address the ongoing bane of so many Nashville commuters’ existence: potholes.

We all hate them, and the first three months of the year are often spent committing to memory the places along the way to work where we have to swerve to avoid the most jaw- and suspension-rattling ones.

Rather than rage to your co-workers (again?), why not be part of the solution and report the location of your tires’ terrors on the city’s constituent services website, hubNashville? You’ll discover a trove of info about the city’s services there, but the ability to report needed repair to streets, roads and sidewalks is going to be near the top. (hub.nashville.gov or search for the hubNashville app on your phone’s app store.)

One urge homeowners experience as the weather warms on the regular is getting outside to make their lawns spring- and summer-ready.

The site lawnlove.com provides a simple list of 11 things homeowners should do as their lawns spring back to life, including tips on whether or not to dethatch, when you should apply mulch and pre-emergent herbicide, how much you should overseed (warm-season or cool-season lawn? Better get your seeds straight) and mow, and much more.

UT Extension’s horticulture program has a handy, printable calendar with specifics per month regarding lawn maintenance and other practices, or you could look at ripping the whole thing up and chasing after wild growth, alternative lawns that require a lot of less water and tending, as Ledger contributor Catherine Mayhew explored for us in 2022.

Culture

Speaking of “beautiful lawns you don’t have to mow,” as well as so many other wondrous sights, Spring is the perfect time to revisit one of Nashville’s most cherished cultural institutions, Cheekwood Estate and Gardens (1200 Forrest Park Drive.)

The centerpiece of Cheekwood’s programming this spring includes a celebration of French art and culture, including an exhibition of more than 50 drawings, prints and photographs from a private collection of impressionist artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917).

This much concentrated culture does come at a cost. The “Gardens Only” ticket ($20-$26 for adult non-members, free for members) provides access to all 13 botanical gardens, Ann & Monroe Carell Jr. Family Sculpture Trail, Bracken Foundation Children’s Garden, Frist Learning Center and more. The “Gardens & Mansion Access” ($26-29 for adult non-members, free for members) adds access to the mansion, museum, art galleries and audio tour.

If you’re looking for your art experience to have a little less landscaped, certainly more concrete feel, check out the two art crawls happening in (and/or near) downtown each month. The long-running FirstBank First Saturday Art Crawl is held 5-8 p.m., primarily along Rep. John Lewis Way between Church and Union, but also in other venues in downtown Nashville. This popular event attracts more than a thousand attendees each month to view and purchase artwork from local and global artists across the participating venues.

The WeHo Art Crawl, running since 2013, kicks off at 6 p.m. on the aforementioned first Saturday and includes contemporary art galleries and creative spaces in the Wedgewood-Houston area. It’s a free event that features live music and art in various forms.

If you like your art a little more on the printed word side (and we thank you for that), April 27 is Independent Bookstore Day, and the acclaimed Parnassus Books in Green Hills already has a robust list of artists and authors lined up to make appearances, including Kate Lewis (The Secret Garden: An Illustrated Edition), Andrew Maraniss (Beyond the Game: LeBron James, Beyond the Game: Maya Moore, Inaugural Ballers, Strong Inside), historical authors Ariel Lawhon (The Frozen River) and Lindsay Lynch (Do Tell), and romance writers Sarah Adams (The Rule Book), Lauren Kung Jessen (Red String Theory), and Jenna Levine (My Roommate is a Vampire).

This is on top of Parnassus’ chock-full calendar of author events, in-store appearances and Saturday story times, not to mention deftly curated collection of titles, all under the watchful eyes and prolific minds of founders/co-owners Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes.

Sports

While Nashville’s sports landscape – and in many ways past, present and future, its skyline – tends to be dominated by the Tennessee Titans, Music City’s sports franchises all have plenty of activity coming up this Spring, be it starting or finishing a season.

Speaking of finishing and finishing strong, the Nashville Predators have gone from “which players do we need to sell off to build for the future?” to “where should we get ready to travel to in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs?” in a few short weeks.

After a mid-Feburary 9-2 loss to the Dallas Stars, the Preds have been on an absolute tear, going 12-0-2 in the 14 subsequent contests and solidifying their place atop the Western Conference Wild Card standings.

Which means there are six more regular season home games, starting Saturday through April 13 at which to cheer on the icebound Boys In Gold before they start sprouting their playoff beards in earnest chasing Lord Stanley’s cup.

From one gold-clad crew to the one that plays on grass, Nashville SC’s MLS regular season is well underway, with the team having just notched its first win against three draws and no losses, interspersed with their appearances in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

The Spring months will feature eight home matches for NSC at the spectacular Geodis Park, culminating with the June 29 return of newly sprouted rivals InterMiami and some scrub named Messi. No, we’re not still salty about the Leagues Cup Final, nor the Champions Cup draw, why do you ask?

Nestled within Germantown sits another of the city’s outstanding sports venues, the now-10-year-old First Horizon Park. (Say what you will about stadiums and spending and Nashville’s growth in general, the last few locations we’ve built in this city have been world-class.)

After a three-game kickoff on the road at Toledo, the Nashville Sounds start their 2024 home campaign April 2 with a six-game stand against the St. Paul Saints. The Sounds are in their fourth season as the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, finishing fourth in the International League in 2023 with an 83-65 record.

The team’s on-field success has been matched, and in some ways exceeded, by the game day experience at First Horizon Park, with its bevy of fan interaction opportunities, matchless in-game sightlines (who misses missing an inning-and-a-half while getting a hot dog at Greer Stadium? Didn’t think so…) and innovative promotional schedule.

That attention to detail has sent attendance skyrocketing over the past few years, and earned the club the 2022 designation as Minor League Baseball Organization of the Year.

While the debate about if/when Nashville will land an MLB franchise goes on (and on…and on…), Midstate baseball fans are extremely well served with what we’ve got right now.

Meanwhile, proving yet again that this city will take football in whatever form we can get it … the Nashville Kats are back, baby! The latest iteration of the Arena Football League (what is this, version 3.0? 6.5? 8.8?) features a 10-week schedule with five home games (beginning April 27) at Municipal Auditorium as well as an Armed Forces Day game against the Georgia Force at F&M Arena in Clarksville (May 18).

While the two biggest draws for the team – former Titans coach Jeff Fisher as president of football operations and longtime Alabama radio voice Eli Gold – are off-field figures, just the nature of high-speed, high-impact, high-scoring action the Arena League brings about should create plenty of on-field stars.

Kids and Family

While the bulk of the Spring still finds children toiling away in school, there is the slow ramp up to Summer with weekends and the entire month of June to fill with activities to keep youngsters’ minds and bodies busy. (If you’re still trying to plot out those scant few weeks of Summer, we’ll point you to our annual list of area camps.

The Nashville Zoo is nearing the finish of its yearslong project to increase parking availability, so it should be a lot easier to park at the Grassmere-area facility by the end of the Spring months. It’ll likely also increase the attendee density at the 188-acre facility, so make your zoo-going plans wisely.

Alongside the zoo’s regular daily schedule of keeper talks and animal meet-and-greets, group classes are available throughout the calendar, and events like the overnight camping Spring Zzzoofari Slumber May 25 provide children with unique experiences. Adults aren’t left out either, with the annual Brew at the Zoo June 14 a craft beer lovers’ wilderness paradise.

The Treetop Adventure Park at Nashville Shores is already open for the season, and the water park proper opens May 11. The adventure park’s course is set in the beautiful woods of the lakeside resort, and the obstacles are suspended between poles with participants securely clipped into safety cables throughout the course.

When the water park opens, guests can experience the newest attraction Riptide Racer, a five-story, mat racing slide. Or brave the waves in a gigantic wave pool, plunge down one of 10 water slides, hang at Kowabunga Beach, a massive water treehouse and playground.

If you’re looking to get the children a little further out of the city and into some nature, Lucky Ladd Farms Fun Park and Petting Zoo in Eagleville has a robust set of daily and special events geared for the whole family.

The farm is in the midst of the Tennessee Tulip Festival which will run through the middle of April, which will be followed by the month-plus long Enchanted Fairytale Festival, featuring unicorns, dragons, fairies, and other storybook character meet and greets.

The farm also features a “pick your own” strawberry patch starting in mid-April, to go along with the Strawberry Pickin’ N’ Grinnin’ Jam Festival the first weekend in May. Plus there’s the Tennessee Butterfly Experience the entire month of June.

Music and Performing Arts

While music is the entertainment form Nashville is most known for (pipe down, bachelorettes and pedal taverns), the region does play home to any number of organizations and venues where performance arts are the key feature. But much like the rest of the city’s core, forever in motion are the programming futures of venues like the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Ryman Auditorium and definitely the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

The Ryman will be one of the key venues involved in the 10th iteration of the Nashville Comedy Festival in April. Festival performances will range from arena shows from the likes of Bert Kreischer and Leanne Morgan at Clarksville’s F&M Bank Arena, Tom Segura and Jeff Dunham at Bridgestone Arena, to the Ryman hosting a reunion of the MTV-spawned troupe The State, Deon Cole, Tony Hinchcliffe and others.

TPAC will feature a stop on acerbic ace Lewis Black final tour, as well as a night devoted to performers from the cult Canadian classic “Letterkenny, and others. And Nashville’s primary comedy stop Zanies will feature new and upcoming comics throughout the week-plus long festival.

But the Spring really does ramp up the prime touring season for national and regional music acts, and venues like Ascend Amphtiheatre, the Basement East, Brooklyn Bowl and others already have strong calendars booked. And there’s the annual June double whammy of CMA Fest June 7-9 and Bonnaroo June 13-16. Every type of fan makes their way to Nashville in these months, making the allure of Music City as undeniable as it’s ever been.