You already know the parks are there. Percy and Edwin Warner sit on the far side of Chickering, close enough that most Forest Hills drives home run alongside their tree line. What most neighbors do not do is set their August around the specific Fridays and Saturdays that the parks quietly program for people who live within a five-minute drive.
Between now and the last Friday of September, three of those Fridays matter more than the others. The rest of the calendar has small, free, drop-in reasons to walk over on a weekday morning. Both categories reward planning, and both are easier to plan around this year because the city's own summer work is wrapping up on our streets.
The three Fridays that finish out the season
The Full Moon Pickin' Party is the anchor. The bluegrass series has been a Nashville tradition for nearly 30 years, running May through September at Percy Warner Park, and this year's remaining dates land squarely inside the window when Forest Hills evenings are still warm enough to sit outside without a jacket.
| Date | Gates | What happens | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, July 24, 2026 | 5:30–10:00 p.m. | Bluegrass main stage plus pickin' circles around the barn | Warner Parks Equestrian Center |
| Friday, August 14, 2026 | 5:30–10:00 p.m. | Same format, food trucks on site | Warner Parks Equestrian Center |
| Friday, September 25, 2026 | 5:30–10:00 p.m. | Series closer under the harvest full moon | Warner Parks Equestrian Center |
The equestrian center address is 2500 Old Hickory Boulevard, which for most Forest Hills residents is a five to eight minute drive from home. The evening pulls families, friends, and dog owners to hear local musicians play under the full moon, with dinner from local food trucks. Proceeds benefit Friends of Warner Parks, the nonprofit that helps preserve and protect Percy and Edwin Warner Parks.
Two practical notes for people who have never gone. First, the event lives and dies by the weather. This year's May 29 opener was postponed to June 5 because of the threat of inclement weather, and tickets from the original date were automatically honored. If a Friday looks wet, watch warnerparks.org before you leave the house. Second, the ticket structure changed this season. Friends of Warner Parks simplified the pricing to expand family access, replacing the old tiered youth pricing so that more kids attend at no cost while keeping the structure straightforward for other guests. If the last time you looked at this event was pre-pandemic, the math is different now.
The weekday drop-ins most neighbors miss
The Pickin' Party is the loud offering. The quieter reason to keep the Warner Park Nature Center in your weekly rhythm is the drop-in programming, most of it free and none of it requiring the school-year commitment of a class.
A partial list of what has been running at the Nature Center at 7311 Highway 100:
- Ask a Master Gardener. No registration required. Members of the University of Tennessee Extension Master Gardeners of Davidson County are available to answer questions and share their knowledge. If your Forest Hills lot is fighting Japanese beetles or a hydrangea that will not bloom, this is a better first call than a nursery.
- Curious Naturalist. A drop-in program where a naturalist walks visitors through a nature mystery of the day, covering wildlife and plant life. Adults and families welcome.
- Bird banding. The long-term banding station has been operating since 1982. Federally licensed researchers and volunteers capture, identify, measure, band, and release wild birds, and the data feeds understanding of bird populations, migration, and the importance of Warner Parks for birds. If you have kids in the 8-to-14 window, this is the outing that sticks.
- Little Harpeth River macroinvertebrate surveys. Neighbors join a survey of the river for the group of small creatures that indicate water quality. Water shoes, not sandals.
- Cave exploration. A rare chance to explore a natural cave inside the park system and learn about how it formed and what lives inside.
- Moth Watch. The parks' first Moth Watch launched this season. Nocturnal, quiet, unlike anything else on the summer calendar.
The Nature Center itself sits inside the same park system that logs more than 3,100 acres of forest and field nine miles from downtown Nashville, with close to a million visitors a year using the Nature Center, picnic shelters, dog park, scenic roadways and overlooks, hiking trails, mountain bike trails, equestrian center and horse trails, cross country running courses, golf courses, and athletic fields. That volume matters when you decide whether to park at the Nature Center lot or start from a smaller trailhead along Old Hickory.
Why the timing matters this summer, specifically
Forest Hills is doing infrastructure work this year that affects how easily you can get to the parks and how walkable your own street is in the meantime.
The city continues to move forward on the Master Stormwater Plan. Surveys and designs have been completed, and construction is expected to be completed by the end of summer in 2026.
That is the near-term news. The longer-term news is that construction on the new Tyne Boulevard Pathway from Hillsboro Road to Robert E. Lee Drive is on track to start construction in 2027. Translation for anyone who lives near Tyne: this summer is your last quiet Tyne before a multi-season construction project reshapes that corridor. If you have been meaning to walk from your driveway west toward the Warner Parks approach, this is the summer to establish the habit before the crews arrive.
Two smaller pieces of city context that residents ask about. The city is installing the last of the stone entrance columns to match others throughout Forest Hills at the entrance to Kingsbury Drive from Old Hickory Boulevard. And the patriotic decor is on display at each of the stone wall features, going up just before Memorial Day and remaining up through Labor Day. If you have wondered why the entrances suddenly looked more finished this summer, that is why.
The dinner problem Forest Hills built for itself
Any late-summer Friday plan in Forest Hills eventually runs into the same constraint. There is nowhere in the city to eat.
That is not an accident. Forest Hills is an incorporated city with its own mayor, city commission, zoning authority, and municipal services. It was incorporated in 1957 by residents who wanted to control their own zoning and resist annexation by Nashville, and it retained its independent charter when Nashville and Davidson County consolidated their governments in 1963. The city spans 9.3 square miles with roughly 5,000 residents, and its zoning requires that Forest Hills remain exclusively residential, with no commercial development.
The upside is what you already know: no through traffic, no drive-through lines on your morning commute, no strip center visible from your kitchen window. The downside is that a post-Pickin' Party dinner has to happen somewhere else. In practice, that somewhere is either Green Hills to the north or a short push into Belle Meade to the west. If you time the Pickin' Party as a first stop rather than the main event, you can catch the opening set from 6:05 on and still be seated at a Green Hills table by 8:30. If you intend to stay for the headliner, plan on eating first or committing to the food trucks on site.
The rules that catch first-timers off guard
The Pickin' Party is a ticketed event with beer, but the park you drive through to reach it is not. A few park-wide rules worth knowing before you show up with a plan that will not survive the gate:
- The parks are open from dawn to 11 p.m., and pets must be on a leash of six feet or shorter, with the exception of Burch Reserve where pets are not allowed.
- Bikes are permitted on paved trails only, with a 15 mph speed limit, and motorized vehicles are not permitted on the Greenway or paved pedestrian trails.
- Collecting plants, fungi, wildlife, or other natural or historic items is prohibited. That includes the interesting rock your seven-year-old wants to bring home.
- No alcohol is allowed in the parks generally. The Pickin' Party is a permitted exception inside the ticketed footprint at the Equestrian Center.
The park's protection status is not incidental to how it feels to walk in. Warner Parks is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and that listing is part of why the stone walls, the allée, and the original CCC-era hardscape all still read the way they did fifty years ago.
The Forest Hills version of a good weekend
The pattern that actually works for people who live here goes something like this. A Saturday morning walk from a Chickering or Tyne driveway to the Nature Center for whatever drop-in is running that day. A weekday evening on the horse trails when the after-work crowd thins. And, three times before September ends, a Friday plan that starts at the Equestrian Center at 5:30 and ends with a table in Green Hills. Nothing on that list requires a reservation more than a week out. All of it is available within a mile or two of home.
If you are thinking through what a Forest Hills lifestyle looks like day to day, or you are curious how the city's residential-only zoning affects long-term value on your street, Barbara Keith Payne is a Nashville native who has spent three decades working inside the 37215 market. Schedule a free consultation to talk through your property, your neighborhood, or your next move.
