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.
The Lawns to Legumes program, which comes through the Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources (BWSR), supports Minnesotans to learn about protecting pollinators and to create pollinator-friendly habitat through native planting in their yards. Blue Thumb partners with BWSR to manage a Lawns to Legumes grant program for residents to create habitat, and provides free educational resources for anyone who wants to do a project.
Blue Thumb workshops promote environmentally-friendly actions that home gardeners can take to make their yards more resilient. Participants learn about site planning, rain gardens, native planting, habitat for pollinators, turf alternatives, planting for shorelines, trees and shrubs and more. The workshop season starts in the spring, and every year we add new material.
The Sustainable Landcare Training program teaches how to properly care for raingardens, other vegetated best management practices in stormwater and native plantings. Participants learn stormwater basics, site hydrology, stormwater inspections of best management practices, the value of native plants, phenology and other related topics. Youths, young adults and others gain job-ready skills to care for landscapes in their communities as well as a foundation for next-step education and career pathways in environmental work.
Sustainable Landcare Training also provides training for landscape professionals and local government staff. Our trainers are experts in native plant identification and management, and inspections of stormwater management practices. They can provide site-specific training so landscape professionals can learn to maintain one particular site.
