Latest News
#NatureZen: Backyard Chickens
A huge THANK YOU to all who donated to our matching-gift campaign for re-opening park facilities! We reached our $5,000 community goal, and International Paper will be generously adding a $10,000 match. We can’t express our appreciation enough for your support during this difficult year! We have a special guest author for today’s #NatureZen, but first–an […]
Playgrounds re-open + 2:1 matching gift opportunity!
As part of the City of Memphis’ Phase 3 re-opening plan, Rainbow Lake and East Parkway Playgrounds will officially reopen tomorrow–Friday, October 9. We’re so excited to welcome everyone back! We want to remind visitors that because of the difficulty of keeping playground equipment sanitized, all play is at your own risk. We’ll continue to […]
#NatureZen: Notecards + Calligrapher Flies
We’re excited to announce that you can now bring home a little bit of #NatureZen! As a holiday gift to yourself or a friend, pre-order a set of notecards featuring five of our favorite photos featured in past editions of #NatureZen. For $20, you’ll receive a ten-pack of cards (two of each design), which fold […]
#NatureZen: Thistle Defense
Hello, Overton Park friends! We’ve got some fun news coming soon on how you can bring a piece of #NatureZen home, so look for that in our next e-mail. For today, we’re focusing on a plant that gets a bad rap. Thistles are a plant in the sunflower family with feathery, puffball-shaped flowers in varying shades […]
#NatureZen: Let’s Talk About Sphex
Words and photos by Melissa McMasters I’ll admit it: today’s look at the creatures of the Old Forest is a bit of an image rehab project. When most of us think about wasps, we think about the paper wasps that build their nests on our porches or right over our front doors. Or maybe we […]
#NatureZen: Peopling the Park
Today we welcome a special guest author to #NatureZen. Dr. Ronné Adkins is the Memphis Field Office Regional Director of External Affairs for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. He has over fifteen years of experience in public service and the environmental field. Dr. Adkins earned his B.A. in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College, an M.S. […]
Overton Bark re-opens
Good news for anyone whose pups have some pent-up energy: Overton Bark has officially re-opened, along with other dog parks in the city! We ask that you wear a face covering in the dog park, keep a safe distance between yourself and other visitors, and avoid the use of shared toys and water dishes. Please bring water […]
#NatureZen: Little Pinocchios
Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s beautiful weather by spending some quality time at Overton Park! For today’s #NatureZen, we’ll take a journey with two of the park’s newest residents. Words and photos by Melissa McMasters On July 14, I was taking a masked-up walk through the Old Forest with one of our favorite Overton Park alumni, […]
#NatureZen: Find That Moth!
Happy National Moth Week, everyone! This week we celebrate the beauty and life cycle of an organism with more than 150,000 species worldwide. Because most moths are nocturnal, there are a vast number of species that we may encounter only rarely. But there are plenty of day-flying moths to discover, with a catch: both adult moths […]
#NatureZen: The Magical World of Amphibians
Today, we’re thrilled to have a guest edition of #NatureZen by Dr. Sinlan Poo, a Research Scientist at the Memphis Zoo. Dr. Poo is a behavioral ecologist who is broadly interested in parental care, predator-prey interactions, reproductive ecology, and reintroduction biology. Though her research is primarily focused on amphibians, she has worked on projects involving small mammals, carnivores, […]