Blue Thumb Workshops
Through our Blue Thumb Education programming, we provide DIYers with the information to make their outdoor spaces more beautiful and sustainable. In 2005, we started our first workshops for home… Read More →
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Volunteer
We are a mission-based organization dedicated to resilient landscapes, and volunteers provide a meaningful impact in the work we do. From time to time, we can use support to help us with planting, maintenance and landcare (such as pulling weeds), and with administrative tasks such as mailings, office support or tabling at events. Opportunities to…
Sponsorship
We invite you to sponsor our work, supporting people, water, and pollinators.
Turf to Pollinator Gardens
We are planting “seeds” for future pollinator gardens within our communities. Working with the nonprofit Wilderness in the City, we’re installing six pollinator-friendly demonstration gardens in parks across the Twin Cities. We hope to inspire park visitors to take home ideas for incorporating native plants into their outdoor spaces. Each garden features all Minnesota-native plants…
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Help Metro Blooms unlock $10,000! Thanks to generous donors, we have the opportunity to unlock $10,000 in the Earth Month Challenge Fund to support community projects. Help us make this happen. Your gift of $250 (or more) unlocks a $250 gift from the fund. Only through April 30 Donate
Flowers That Beam Community Garden
We worked with residents at Beam Apartments and Townhomes in North Minneapolis to plan and create a mini-park for the community. Starting in 2022, we met residents at community events… Read More →
Rich Harrison on Landscape Design, People, Pollinators and Joy
A nonexistent raingarden is how Rich Harrison connected with Metro Blooms. He was the caretaker of the apartment building where he lived, and the yard there was a mess: a couple of trees had been taken down, stormwater was collecting, and nothing was growing. Harrison decided to put in a raingarden. He knew of Metro…
Volunteer!
Volunteers make a huge difference in what we do at Metro Blooms. As a mission-based organization dedicated to resilient landscapes, we are always looking for people to give their time to make an impactful change in their communities. You could help with planting, take part in maintenance (weeds, those weeds!), and give gardening guidance to others…
Low-Cost and Accessible Gardening Resources
Do you know there are many resources available for free or at low cost? Some of them may be right in your neighborhood. Have a look below to find out where you can get trees, compost, mulch, and seeds — and to learn more about gardening. We’ll also add upcoming events occasionally.
38th Street: Goodridge Building Green Wall
During the six years that Becca Cerra has had a studio at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC), she never noticed the Goodridge Building, one of CAFAC’s neighbors at George Floyd Square. With a non-descript brick front, it looked like just another quiet office space among a string of local businesses that make up the…
Trio Landscaping: Designing Yards for Now and Tomorrow
How do you live in your outdoor space? Do kids play in the yard? Do you like to gather with friends? Are you a gardener? How will all of this change over time? Diana Grundeen of Trio Landscaping asks a lot of questions the first time she meets a potential client. She’s gathering the information…
Sponsor Spotlight: Minnesota Native Landscapes
From restoring native plant communities in a floodplain to managing vegetation at a solar farm to deploying goat herds for buckthorn removal, Minnesota Native Landscapes Corp. (MNL) takes on many large-scale projects as part of its mission to “Heal the Earth.” But this Otsego, MN-based ecological restoration business also supports individuals to take action in…
38th Street: Art, Native Plants and Pollinators
A pollinator garden on 38th Street and Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis, steps from our office, is a garden for all seasons. At the height of the summer, there are blooming coneflowers and black-eyed Susans. Right now the garden is blanketed in white, the coneflowers covered with snow hats. It’s the perfect backdrop for viewing the…
Metro Blooms receives scholarship for green roofs training
Metro Blooms recently learned we received a $5,000 scholarship from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities to help participants in our Sustainable Landcare Training program gain skills in the green roofs profession. Our training program prepares youths and young adults to be part of a growing green infrastructure workforce as we see more earth-friendly practices such…
2023 Sponsorship
We invite you to sponsor our work. You would be supporting more resilient landscapes that protect our natural bodies of water and our pollinators, and the people and communities working with us towards creating them. Depending on the sponsorship you choose, you would benefit from your brand presence on our Metro Blooms and Blue Thumb…
Sponsor Spotlight: West Monroe and Developing Future Leaders
Developing the next generation of leaders is part of West Monroe’s mission, and it’s one reason the digital and business consulting firm supports Metro Blooms’ Sustainable Landcare Training program to develop a skilled green infrastructure workforce for the future. West Monroe works to deliver digital solutions in diverse fields, from helping a healthcare system establish…
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Join our mailing list Metro Blooms Design + Build Consultations Earth Month Challenge Fund: Support Metro Blooms through April 30! May 7 Community Coffee Chat Apply for a Lawns to Legumes Grant Blue Thumb Resilient Yards Learning Series + Workshops Blue Thumb Plant Finder Lawns to Legumes Feedback Survey April Blue Thumb Blog Post: Out…
A New Home For Us to Grow, Bloom, Inspire
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Brook Gardens
We started working with the Brook Gardens community in 2019. Community members were co-creators in this project to create more resilient and livable outdoor spaces. Residents set priorities for the… Read More →
Landscape Redesign: Working With the Community
Inviting a community’s residents to be part of redesigning their landscape helps to create outdoor space more responsive to their needs and increases the likelihood of their stewardship of the space. Currently Metro Blooms is on this journey with tenants at Brook Gardens, a rental community in Brooklyn Park where we recently finished our first…
Working at Autumn Ridge: Year Three, in a Pandemic
We have adjusted our work to pandemic times, experiencing challenges but also opportunities. Here’s an update on Autumn Ridge Apartments in Brooklyn Park.
Summer Internship: Learning About Raingardens
One thing interns are sure to learn about at Metro Blooms is raingardens. This summer we hosted Althea Kuzniewski, an environmental studies major at the University of Minnesota. Althea came to us through the U’s Institute on the Environment, in an internship supported by Ecolab. She had the job of visiting and assessing raingardens we…
Employment
Who We Are Metro Blooms is a nonprofit that partners with communities to create resilient landscapes and foster clean watersheds, embracing the values of equity and inclusion to solve environmental challenges. We believe that collaboration with community is the most impactful way to heal our earth and we strive to center relationships in all that…
Great Streets 38th Street
Metro Blooms and art partner Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC) worked with local businesses and community organizations to add pollinator plantings and pollinator-themed art along the 38th Street commercial… Read More →
Redesigning Outdoor Spaces With Residents at Rental Communities in Brooklyn Park
Major changes are coming to the outdoor spaces at two affordable housing communities in Brooklyn Park. Metro Blooms has been engaging with residents at Brooks Landing and nearby Brook Gardens… Read More →
Blue Thumb Education
Blue Thumb – Planting for Clean Water is a partnership of local government, landscape contractors, native plant nurseries and other entities committed to the promotion of native plantings, rain gardens, and shoreline plantings. Blue Thumb is managed by Metro Blooms and provides our education programs, including the ones listed below. Learn more about Blue Thumb…
Equitable Engagement
At Metro Blooms we strive to make engagement equitable through real relationships, supporting opportunities for silenced voices to be heard, and implementing what we’ve heard from those most impacted by environmental and social injustices. We prioritize partnering with Black, Indigenous, People of Color, renters, and low-income communities. Intentionality: We collaborate with local community members and…
Autumn Ridge and Building Capacity
Metro Blooms is coordinating a major landscape renovation at an affordable housing complex in Brooklyn Park involving many partners, including residents, the owner, local government, a community organization and the watershed district.
Your Soil Health Really Matters
Please call it soil, not dirt. The rock, clay, minerals and silt that make up dirt are largely devoid of the organic matter and living organisms in the complex ecosystem… Read More →
Metro Blooms at the One Water Summit
(Caption: Some people bring their best game faces to important events. Community Engagement Manager Kimberly Carpenter brought Metro Blooms’ best flower faces. Photo courtesy of Hennepin County Extension). Metro Blooms… Read More →