Metro Councilmember Jordan Huffman
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
Metro Councilmember Jordan Huffman grew up in Greeneville, a small town in northeast Tennessee. Whenever his family drove into Asheville, N.C., for dinner or a show, he’d look out the car window at the flowers.
“I was always fascinated, when we crossed the state line, at all the wildflowers that would be around,” he tells the Scene.
These wildflowers were the result of careful urban planning by the North Carolina state government. “It was really based on North Carolina having a really, really good wildflower program,” Huffman says.
When he ran to represent Nashville’s Metro Council District 14, Huffman knew he wanted the same for Tennessee: a program reintroducing native plants on highway verges, parks and public spaces. Now he’s putting that plan into action through the Metro Wildflower Project.
In March, Huffman passed Metro Council bill RS2024-319, requesting that the Nashville Department of Transportation and Metro Parks Department “establish and implement a wildflower program” planting indigenous wildflowers and plants native to Middle Tennessee on suitable pieces of public land.
At sites across Nashville, the Metro Wildflower Project will plant indigenous species including black-eyed Susans, bundleflowers, New England asters, goldenrods and prairie clover. They’ll also plant Tennessee coneflower, a species of echinacea indigenous specifically to Middle Tennessee.
Wildflowers play an important environmental role, supporting pollinators like bees and butterflies and the ecosystems that depend on them. Goldenrod, which is commonly misattributed as a cause of seasonal allergies (its pollen is actually animal-borne), supports late-season pollinators and dozens of butterfly and moth species. Black-eyed Susans are a larval host plant to some insects and a food source for birds. Purple prairie clover prevents soil erosion, supports pollinators and provides a food source for birds and small mammals.
Tennessee coneflower is both environmentally and historically significant. Last decade, dedicated botanists removed it from the endangered species list, and it’s part of a family of plants that Indigenous Americans have been using medicinally for hundreds of years.
Because of their naturally deep and extensive root systems, indigenous plants can also soak up storm water runoff more effectively than grass. These root systems can aid the city’s ongoing flood resilience efforts alongside the existing projects converting some flood-prone developed areas into much-needed natural floodplains — crucial considerations in light of the immense damage recently sustained by neighboring North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
The Wildflower Project could also save transportation departments time and effort. When planted on steeper verges, indigenous plants require less frequent maintenance than grass medians. While it hasn’t been definitively proven, Huffman says seeing wildflowers in an area could make people less likely to litter too.
In the first phase of the Wildflower Project, native plants will be reintroduced in one or two areas within each council district that supported the legislation. Metro Parks will also plant in a few initial spots, including Ravenswood Park, Shelby Bottoms and Bells Bend. The Nashville Department of Transportation’s Beautification Commission will implement the first phase this year; they’ll partner with Metro Parks to implement the second phase in 2025.
Next year, “the goal is to have this as an item in the mayor’s operational budget,” Huffman says. He tells the Scene he’s pitched about $100,000 to roll out the second phase of the program, split among departments to pay for operating costs like seed, preparing planting sites and kits to test soil pH. NDOT is also planning to plant wildflowers as part of its Complete Streets program.
Metro Councilmember Jordan Huffman
Before local leaders can make the city a better place for butterflies and bees, Metro will also need to prepare the ground for the wildflowers’ arrival. Huffman has ordered a special seed mix, and he’s also gone back to the people responsible for the wildflowers of his childhood: the North Carolina Department of Transportation. NCDOT told Huffman about the best practices they learned in 25 years of their own wildflower program, including planting indigenous plants alongside the wildflowers.
North Carolina’s program is partially funded by selling a specialty license plate, something Huffman hopes Nashville could do in the future. While NDOT is implementing the Wildflower Project’s first phase, Huffman also hopes to get the Tennessee Department of Transportation involved. While the city and state government have been at odds for years, Huffman says wildflowers are one cause that can bridge most ideological gaps. “If there’s anything that we can agree on, it’s probably going to be wildflowers,” he says.
Overall, the response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive. “I’ve not met many people that are anti-wildflower,” says Huffman. “They’re pretty nonpartisan.” As Huffman’s bill passed through committees and the Metro Council, the conversations centered on how to make sure the wildflowers thrive. Huffman met with the Metro Council’s Pollinator Committee to develop best practices for planting, ensuring the right light and soil balance for the specific varieties planted in each spot.
Now these efforts are nearing a conclusion. Planting will happen over the next year, and in the spring and summer, the wildflowers will start to emerge. They’ll make the city less likely to flood, prettier and easier to maintain. And for Nashville’s bees, birds and butterflies, the flowers will be a welcome sight. By the time the monarch butterflies arrive at Ravenwood Park’s Monarch Meadow next year, Huffman says they’ll have more flowers than ever before.
