The Birmingham Botanical Gardens
A slice of nature in the middle of the city
Today is Good Friday for those who celebrate, and it’s also a bee-yooo-tiful spring day. Sunny. Highs in the low 70s. It doesn’t get any better than a day like today. That’s why it’s the perfect time to visit one of our favorite places – the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (the BBG or the Botan (BOH-tan), as we now call it).
Now when I was a kid, Mama and Granny would haul me to Bellingrath Gardens in Theodore, Ala. (that’s down in Mobile County, if you don’t know), and at the time, I just couldn’t appreciate it. All I knew was that it was hot, flat, and buggy. While they fawned over the day lilies and azaleas, I was just bored…and thirsty.
As a preteen, my parents took my brother and me on a trip to Canada where we visited the Jardin botanique de Montréal. This place was not as sunbaked, but frankly, I don’t have much recollection of being there. The only thing I really remember is eating lunch at their outdoor cafe and pigeons swooping in to steal french fries from our plates. It’s a good thing I had not yet seen Hitchcock’s famous film or I would have really freaked out.
Suffice it to say, me and gardens haven’t always been BFFs.
Fast forward to 2020.
Pandemic. Lock down. Masking. Curfews.
Ricky and I live in a condo, and while we have a small balcony, we don’t have a yard. After a few weeks, we’re feeling an urge to get outside that seems stronger than it ever has before. Apparently until you can’t go outside, you just take it for granted. So we started making trips to Railroad Park, Oak Mountain State Park, Red Mountain Park, and Ruffner Mountain, which are all a 10-30 minute drive from where we live, as well as the BBG, which is only a mile and a half away.
All of these places are wonderful in their own ways and we’ve made many trips to all of them, but the BBG is the place that we have come to frequent several times a week. This turn of events has surprised me since I have heretofore not been a gardens gal as I mentioned above. But I guess I am now.
What I love about the Botan is how many experiences you can have on its 67 acres in the heart of Mountain Brook. At the entryway and in the center parts are the more refined garden spaces – the rose garden, the formal lawn, the Conservatory, the Southern Living garden. But as you expand out from there, the scenery changes.
On the northern end of the park (to your right as you enter) past the lawn, you pass the vegetable gardens and enter into a more forested area. The terrain gets steeper. Things get a little wilder. There’s a stream that flows over rocks under wooden bridges. The paths are dirt.
On this end we’ve seen hawks perched high in the trees. We’ve seen skinks and lizards. In the summer months, it would behoove you to watch out for snakes. This is the area where you feel like you’re hiking through the woods, and it does require a tiny bit of exertion.
On the way back down though, you’ll pass my most favorite spot in the whole garden, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll have to find your “spot” by yourself!
Ricky and I always have to check on the bees. Yes, the Botan has a number of beehives behind the vegetable gardens. It’s fascinating to see them work! And if you don’t flail around like a maniac, you don’t have to worry about being stung. They just fly around you to and from the pollinator gardens. This is also where the monarch butterflies come, and we’ve watched Gulf Fritillary butterflies grow from caterpillars that completely decimated the plants around them to beautiful orange butterflies that flitted from flower to flower.
On the southern end of the Botan, past the Alabama Woodlands, another forested area where you can “hike,” is the Japanese Gardens, which is probably one of the most popular and well-known parts of the garden, marked by the big, red torii, a Japanese gate that is supposed to mark the division between a regular place and a sacred place.
Here, stone bridges cross more streams. There is a Zen garden, a bamboo garden, and bonsai. The cherry trees are in full bloom at this very moment. A massive koi pond is at the center. Ricky and I have become particularly fond of watching the turtles, and we’ve seen at least two varieties – regular hardshell turtles, which seem very prolific and can often be seen on the rocks in the center of the pod, and a few soft shell turtles, which are very shy and hard to spot.
I feel like I should talk about flowers a bit. That is, after all, why most people visit a garden. There are expansive areas filled with roses, rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, and ferns. Seeing the daffodils bloom on the wooded hillside is always my first telltale sign that spring is coming. Look for water lilies in two of the pools. There are cactuses and citrus in the Conservatory. I’m always amazed by the myriad types of greenery there is too – all sorts of evergreens and interesting bushes and shrubs. And bedding plants full of annuals are regularly rotated in and out. I’m no horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to use the Picture This app to learn the names and features of many of the plants.
I started this post by talking about what a beautiful spring day it is to visit the BBG, but in all perfect honesty, every day is a good day to visit because you’ll always see something new. We’ve been there in the heat of summer and in the dead of winter. We’ve been there on beautiful days like today and on rainy, foggy days. No matter the weather or the season, things are always growing and changing, and each and every visit is unique.
Here are some other good things to know about the BBG.
They have clean bathrooms – some at the entry and some halfway down the paved path to the Japanese gardens. I really appreciate this feature because I love nature and don’t want to have to pee on it.
There’s a restaurant! The Gardens Cafe by Kathy G is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday. It’s a nice place to go for a light lunch and a glass of wine.
Most of the garden is accessible per ADA requirements, although some of the wilder areas would be difficult to access. Wheelchairs are available for check-out in the Garden Center.
Speaking of which, Leaf & Petal operates a beautiful gift and plant shop, and BBG members get a discount. (Ricky and I use the Gardens so much, we are members because we feel that it is imperative to support a place from which we derive so much enjoyment.)
There’s also an art gallery!
And a library that’s part of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative!
And while it is a beautiful place to take those memorable photos, there are strict guidelines that preserve the integrity of the space and make it enjoyable for everyone including those who are not having their big moment.
They also rent spaces for events.
The Botan also has tons of events and special lectures, so check their calendar often.
I am not being at all hyperbolic, when I say that the Botan has converted me from someone who really despised the very thought of going to a botanical garden to someone who loves and relishes a botanical garden experience, especially at the BBG, which we now consider our yard away from home.
The BBG is open every single day of the year from 7 a.m. - 6 p.m. in the spring and summer and until 5 p.m. in the fall and winter. So get on over there and enjoy the gift of being outside.
This is a lovely description of one of the wonders of our area. There is also a huge rust-colored gate/arbor in one area that friends of writer/artist Sara Askew Jones designed, funded, and had built to honor her after she passed. I don't go here often because I walk with my dog at places that welcome dogs, but I agree, the Botanical Garden is a wonderful place and worth exploring. My editor at Southern Living, John Floyd, was a huge supporter along with his wife Pam, and could often be found working in the rose garden.
I've told stories at BBG, but in the evening. I've never explored it during daylight hours.