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People in a classroom sized room looking at screen with photos of lake shoreline plantings

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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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…

orange flowers in field, building in back

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…

People planting a large garden

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…

Back of two people on bench in a small park with gardens

Video: Connecting With Community at Riverside Plaza

Since 2018, Metro Blooms and Riverside Plaza, a rental community in Minneapolis, 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…

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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…

Three men after planting in a large community garden

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…

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Sponsorship

We invite you to sponsor our work, supporting people, water, and pollinators.

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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 more. Donate

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…

Choosing Turf Alternatives

If you want to change your lawn, ask yourself what you expect from your new landscape. How different do you want it to look? How much time are you prepared…  Read More

Workshop Reflections

What a Twentysomething Renter Learned   I have recently experienced the effects of poorly managed stormwater: water dripped from the roof and into the spaces between my apartment walls, paint…  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

A Year In Summary – 2016

The end of a year naturally brings about a desire to reflect on what we as an organization have achieved, what’s made us pound our heads on our desks, and…  Read More

A Year in Summary

As I began thinking about a summary of our year at Metro Blooms, I started thinking about what excites me the most about my job.  At Metro Blooms, we couple…  Read More

End Of The Year Update

As the end of 2012 approaches Metro Blooms is looking back on some of the big moments we had this year.  As always we started the year out with a…  Read More