Search Results
CLCLT: Partnering With Land Trust Homeowners
Metro Blooms started partnering with the City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT) and the City of Minneapolis in 2023 to provide workshops on sustainable gardening and yard care to CLCLT homeowners. The land trust, a nonprofit based in Northside Minneapolis, helps make home ownership more affordable and provides support to its homeowners to maintain…
Video: Connecting With Community at Riverside Plaza
Since 2018, Metro Blooms and the community have collaborated to redesign outdoor spaces for greater environmental resilience and better quality of outdoor living. We’ve engaged with residents at community meetings, workshops, social events and community-planting events, working with the Riverside Plaza Tenant Association (RPTA) and owner Sherman Associates. Resident input has helped shape the designs…
Video: Blooming Boulevards in Minneapolis
Through Blooming Boulevards, we engage residents in communities impacted by environmental injustices to receive pollinator-friendly boulevard rain gardens, taking part in planting and maintenance events. We also partner with local youth/young adult groups on learning and paid work opportunities. We are building ongoing relationships through this program; every year, we learn more about better supporting…
Bunker Hills Regional Park
About This garden design showcases the many diverse ways you can bring native plants into just about any landscape. The photos show the site at the start of the process. Have a look at the design below to see the different plants and how they’re used. For a large area, consider a seeded pollinator meadow.…
Minnehaha Regional Park
About The planting at Minnehaha Glen is a part of the larger restoration effort in Minnehaha Park to replace invasive species, like buckthorn, with native plants. When MPRB staff assessed the site, they found several native plant species present despite encroaching species like buckthorn and burdock. The short list of plants in the design complement…
Keller Regional Park
About This garden is part of a larger restoration effort around Keller Lake and the nearby Keller Golf Course to bring native plants back to public spaces. Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District, which has worked in these spaces for years, brought together students from American Indian Magnet, Water Stewards, Master Gardeners, and its own staff to…
Lebanon Hills Regional Park — Holland Lake Trailhead
About There is a native plant for every space — and the garden at the Holland Lake Trailhead in Lebanon Hills Regional Park is a showcase of just that! In a small footprint, this garden manages to showcase spring-blooming showstoppers, prairie plants for drier areas of full sun, shade-loving plants happy to thrive under a…
Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
About The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis features a pollinator meadow. Staff at Eloise Butler created the design and community volunteers, along with the Mississippi River Green Team and Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa, planted the meadow. The matrix style of the meadow includes flowering plants mixed in with…
Turf to Pollinator Gardens
Creating Native Plant Pollinator Havens Do you want to attract more pollinators in your yard? We’ll show you how, through Turf to Pollinator Gardens. In partnership with Wilderness in the City and others, we planted six native plant pollinator gardens in Twin Cities regional parks. The gardens replaced turf grass lawn, which offers little food…
Battle Creek Regional Park
About The large garden at Battle Creek Regional Park includes a pollinator meadow with two smaller gardens, one at the southeast corner and one on the western edge. Thanks to a partnership with Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District and Saint Paul Public Schools, the meadow was planted by students from L’Etoile Du Nord French Immersion School,…
Sustainable Landcare Training 2024
Edwin, a member of our Design+Build landcare crew, likes discussing plants. Our crew maintains rain gardens, native plantings and other green infrastructure practices in the Twin Cities Metro. When residents stop by with questions about plants, Edwin points out different species, especially potential weeds that may spread quickly. “Just to be able to identify…
Video: Sustainable Landcare Training Mentorship
Our Blue Thumb Sustainable Landcare Training program trains young adults in environmental justice communities to care for rain gardens, native plantings and other green infrastructure practices. Participants are paid for their time and gain job-ready skills and pathways to green careers. In 2024, we connected some trainees who completed the program to mentors working in…
St. Louis Park Neighborhood of Rain Gardens
Since 2018, we have worked with the City of St. Louis Park’s Rainwater Rewards program, which supports residents to take on stormwater management practices in their yards. Our first year, we installed 20 rain gardens in participating residents’ yards, and the program has grown since. This work is part of our Neighborhood of Rain Gardens…
Riverside Plaza Community Green Spaces
Metro Blooms has been working with the Riverside Plaza community since 2018 to redesign outdoor spaces for greater environmental resilience and better quality of outdoor living. Through our partnership, we created beautiful community green spaces that manage stormwater sustainably and provide habitat for pollinators. We worked with the Riverside Plaza Tenant Association (RPTA) and owner…
Northeast Minneapolis Commercial Corridor
Small business properties in cities often don’t have space for flowers or trees, and have lots of impermeable concrete outdoor areas. But our design team identified many opportunities to improve water quality and create habitat for pollinators. We partnered with local businesses and organizations in Northeast Minneapolis to install clean water and native habitat projects…
Minneapolis Blooming Boulevards
Through Blooming Boulevards, we engage residents in communities impacted by environmental injustices to receive pollinator-friendly boulevard rain gardens, taking part in planting and maintenance events. We also partner with local youth/young adult groups on learning and paid work opportunities. We are building ongoing relationships through this program; every year, we learn more about better supporting…
Great Streets 38th Street Minneapolis
From 2020–2022, 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 corridor. Projects included planters at Mama Sheila’s House of Soul, native plantings and sculptural art work at Everett’s Foods, Cedar Small Engine Repair, HardShell Fitness amd…
Flowers That Beam Community Garden
We worked with the community at Beam Apartments and Townhomes in North Minneapolis to plan and create a mini-park. Starting in 2022, we met residents at community events — including a neighborhood cleanup and a bingo evening — to learn their priorities for the project. The final design included native plant pollinator gardens, fruit trees,…
Brook Gardens Redesign With Community
Residents of affordable housing communities, many of them long-term community members, may care deeply about where they live but not have the ability to influence decisions that impact their home. We partnered with the Brook Gardens community in Brooklyn Park to center resident priorities. Brook Gardens is a townhome/apartment complex that is home to many…
Our Work
Metro Blooms provides resources to help people care for land and water. This often includes support to install rain gardens that filter and clean water or native plantings that provide habitat for pollinators. Partnership and relationships are central to how we work. We partner with community groups, nonprofits, local government, business owners and individuals, from…
Creating Sustainable Green Space With Community
When Hawo Abdi saw a flier about a tree-planting event in the elevator at her apartment building, she immediately took a picture and sent it around to other friends with children urging them to attend. The event would teach youth about how to plant trees, take better care of the earth, and give their time…
Autumn Ridge Redesign
Turf to Pollinator Gardens in Twin Cities Regional Parks
One morning last May, fifth-graders from the American Indian Magnet School gathered in a circle on a little island near the shore of Keller Lake Regional Park in Maplewood. Teacher Thomas Draskovic, a Lakota/Dakota culture and language specialist, led student drummers in a song acknowledging the four directions, the sky, and Mother Earth. Then it…
You’re Invited!
An event to celebrate the Riverside Plaza Community Gardens and our dedicated donors Thursday, July 18 4pm – 6pm Riverside Plaza, at the small park on the northwest corner of 6th Street and Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis. Please let us know if you plan to attend.
Sustainable Landcare Training
Through the Blue Thumb Sustainable Landcare Training (SLC) program, we’re growing a local green infrastructure workforce and creating pathways in the environmental field. During the 30-hour program, trainees learn about… Read More →
Purchase a Replacement Rain Garden Sign
If you have a rain garden installed by Metro Blooms but no longer have the sign it came with, we have replacements! Our newest version is bilingual, with English on one side and Spanish on the other. It is 10 inches wide, so you may need to get a new sign stake for it as…
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 →
John Kinara Appointed New Chair of Metro Blooms Board
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Metro Blooms is pleased to announce that John Kinara has been appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of Metro Blooms. Kinara, formerly Vice-Chair, takes on the leadership role from Carol Kuechler, who will continue to serve as a Board member. “This is a very proud moment for me, stepping into the…
Sponsorship
We invite you to sponsor our work, supporting people, water, and pollinators.