Education | Metro Blooms

Workshop Series

We offer a suite of workshops through our Blue Thumb program that promote actions that home gardeners can easily take to make their yards more resilient and help the environment. Participants learn about site planning, rain gardens, native planting, habitat for pollinators, turf alternatives, trees and shrubs and more. The workshops start during the spring; every year we add new material. We also provide information on resources to help participants follow up on taking action, such as the state’s Lawns to Legumes program providing cost-share grants for residents to create pollinator habitat. In 2019, we welcomed our 10,000th workshop participant!

Sustainable Landcare Training

As with all other landscaping, raingardens and native plantings need care. Through Blue Thumb, we offer a Sustainable Landcare Training program to teach youths, young adults and landscape professionals how to properly care for raingardens, native plant gardens, and other vegetated best management practices in stormwater. The program covers stormwater basics, understanding site hydrology, stormwater BMP inspections, the value of native plants, phenology and other related topics. We also offer site-specific training for people who want to learn to maintain one particular site.

Program Supporters

Barr Engineering

Blue Thumb—Planting for Clean Water

In 2015, Metro Blooms began coordinating the Blue Thumb—Planting for Clean Water program and partnership that promotes native plants, raingardens, shoreline stabilization projects and turf alternatives to reduce runoff and improve water quality. Blue Thumb has many partners in the Metro area, Southeast Minnesota, and beyond and includes watershed and conservation districts, cities, native plant nurseries, ecologically-minded landscape designers and installers. Members share knowledge and resources to help people get more native plants and other clean-water practices in the ground.

Lawns to Legumes

In 2019, the Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources began the Lawns to Legumes program with funding through the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. Blue Thumb was selected as a partner to help individuals across the state learn about and install pollinator habitat.