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red planter with native flowers near red pergola

38th Street: Plants at Mama Sheila’s House of Soul

Earlier in the fall, passers-by might have noticed some bright-red planters, with late-season blooms spilling out, at the entrance to Mama Sheila’s House of Soul in Minneapolis. They matched perfectly with the outdoor tables and pergola. It was almost as if it had been planned that way all along. But it was something new. In…

front lawn with clover

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…

art sculpture in small garden in front of building winter

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…

38th Street: More Nature at Hardshell Fitness

The more nature, the better, for Ben Swarts. A couple of years ago, when he moved his business, Hardshell Fitness, into a former gas station on 38th Street at Longfellow, Swarts “threw” some seeds down behind the building. Today that space is a beautiful wildflower garden. Now he looks at the gray expanse of paved…

All Nations Church: Planting Seeds of Stewardship

Bendu Kollie wants to learn as much as she can about the plants growing in her church’s raingarden. Her church community, All Nations Seventh-Day Adventist Church, planted it in August with the help of Metro Blooms in a landscape renovation to manage stormwater and help pollinators. She hopes it plants seeds of stewardship among the…

A Decade of Neighborhood of Raingardens

One of our longest-running programs, Neighborhood of Raingardens, turns 10 this year. Over the past decade, we’ve been installing raingardens in people’s yards, neighborhood by neighborhood, while teaching residents about landscaping practices that can help reduce stormwater runoff, a major cause of water pollution. Our goal is to help people make their property and community…

Measuring Runoff on a Permeable City Alley

How well does permeable pavement reduce runoff? Metro Blooms set out to answer this question in a privately-owned alley in Minneapolis’ Standish-Ericsson neighborhood. We compared how much rain flowed down…  Read More

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.

Jun Tang Maps Pollinator Sweet Spots

Jun Tang is committed to making the Twin Cities and beyond more habitable for some of our smallest denizens: pollinators. A regional planner for Metro Blooms, Tang has developed a…  Read More

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

A Blooming Alley in St. Paul

Metro Blooms of Minneapolis has taken its work to make alleys greener across the river into St. Paul. Four raingardens, three areas of native plantings and a permeable pavement system…  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

Creating Climate Resilient Yards

We live in unsettled times, and nowhere is this more evident than outside our own windows. Through them, we see more extreme weather events every year. Leslie Yetka, of the Freshwater…  Read More

Blooming Alley Tour & Happy Hour

Written by Aleli Balagtas Come see Metro Blooms’ first Blooming Alley, and rediscover back alleys. The idea is to look beyond garbage cans and garages and envision alleys as inviting,…  Read More