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…
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…
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…
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 →
Metro Blooms’ design team has become more artistic. When new member Jennifer Moeller is not out in the field working or in the office planning, she just might be drawing… Read More →
MPLS WEST BANK– Colleen O’Dell is both a Research Assistant in Practice for Metro Blooms, as well as a Masters Student at both the U of M College of Design… Read More →
Drive along Brooklyn Boulevard in Brooklyn Park, and you’ll pass a typical sprawling parking lot for a shopping center. But look a little closer, and you’ll see something different about the green strip bordering the road. Amidst the typical turfgrass, cheerful clumps of native grasses and flowers beckon visitors, plantings arranged in gently curving beds…
Our Mission Metro Blooms partners with communities to create resilient landscapes and foster clean watersheds, embracing the values of equity and inclusion to solve environmental challenges. Learn about our work
We are planting “seeds” for future pollinator gardens within our communities.
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…
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…
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…
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…
Last summer was the first time we did a Neighborhood of Raingardens program in one community with a major focus on maintenance. The Sheridan Neighborhood Association in Minneapolis wanted to provide previous participants with guidance on caring for their raingardens. So we offered a “raingarden refresh” program. During a one-and-a-half-hour visit, we checked a participant’s…
Brooks Landing Apartments is an affordable housing complex for seniors comprising 110 units on almost two acres in Brooklyn Park. Since 2019, we have been working with residents on redesigning… Read More →
We’ve been working with the Brook Gardens community since 2019. Community members were co-creators in this project to create more resilient and livable outdoor spaces. Residents set priorities for the… Read More →
Metro Blooms grew out of a volunteer-powered garden recognition program, the Minneapolis Garden Awards program, which was first established by the City of Minneapolis’ Committee on the Urban Environment (CUE). Between 1979 and 2016, hundreds of trained volunteer evaluators visited thousands of gardens, every year recognizing and celebrating excellence, and inspiring a proud culture of…
We worked with community partners to develop projects focused on clean water investment in Near North Minneapolis neighborhoods. We partnered with Harrison Neighborhood Association to recruit three businesses, Venture North… Read More →
We have adjusted our work to pandemic times, experiencing challenges but also opportunities. Here’s an update on Autumn Ridge Apartments in Brooklyn Park.
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 our communities is the most impactful way to heal our earth and we strive to center relationships in all…
For over ten years, we have worked with neighborhoods, cities, and so many other partners to install accessible and functional projects with their residents.
The Rapson Hall raingarden is designed to connect two existing overflow catch basins in a grassy bio-infiltration area in the courtyard outside of Rapson Hall at the University of Minnesota.… Read More →
This project works to transform the impermeable concrete landscape and improve outdoor livability at Riverside Plaza through participatory landscape design, installation, and care focused on stormwater management and urban habitat.… Read More →
In two years, this successful partnership between the City of St. Louis Park Rainwater Rewards program and Metro Blooms has brought almost 50 raingardens to St. Louis Park yards since… Read More →
In 2015 and 2018, the Standish Ericsson Neighborhood Association (SENA) and Metro Blooms worked together to engage residents in practices protecting water quality. Ultimately, 32 raingardens were installed in the… Read More →
Since 2017, Metro Blooms has worked with the Waite Park Neighborhood Association to help residents in the installation of raingardens to protect water quality. This area drains to the Mississippi… Read More →
Metro Blooms began partnering with the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District in 2012 to improve the quality of water in Lotus Lake. To find out which stormwater management practices… Read More →
