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People in a front yard learning about gardening

Gardening with City of Lakes Community Land Trust Homeowners

Shannon modestly calls herself a “first-grader” when it comes to gardening. But she clearly knows a thing or two. Just ask about her yard, and she’ll tell you about her hostas and rhododendron; the hydrangea near her front porch that exploded in blooms last summer; her royal oak, Ralph; and the most recent addition: a…

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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 about our work

2023 Sponsorship

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…

2013 Triumphs And Lessons Learned

As 2013 winds to an end, we find ourselves spending a lot of time planning for NEXT year.  At Metro Blooms we’re writing work plans for 2014, anxiously awaiting the…  Read More

Blooming Schoolyards 2013

Many Metro Blooms supporters have not heard of Blooming Schoolyards, Metro Blooms’ K-12 outdoor classroom education program. And what a shame that is because I can tell you from experience…  Read More

Spotlight Projects: Spring 2012

All of us here at Metro Blooms are excited for our 2012 projects… we have dozens!  😀There are two however that we’d like to describe more in depth: Urban Homeworks…  Read More

headshot man in suit and tie

John Kinara Appointed New Chair of Metro Blooms Board

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Metro Blooms is pleased to announce that John Kinara has been appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of Metro Blooms. Kinara, formerly Vice-Chair, takes on the leadership role from Carol Kuechler, who will continue to serve as a Board member. “This is a very proud moment for me, stepping into the…

closeup hands in gardening gloves in flower garden

Sponsorship

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

Rusty patched bumblebee with wildflowers

Turf to Pollinator Gardens

We are planting “seeds” for future pollinator gardens within our communities. Working with the nonprofit Wilderness in the City, we’re installing six pollinator-friendly demonstration gardens in parks across the Twin Cities. We hope to inspire park visitors to take home ideas for incorporating native plants into their outdoor spaces. Each garden features all Minnesota-native plants…

A happy person wearing gardening gloves holding butterfly weed near garden

Environmental Justice

For Metro Blooms, Environmental Justice means healing and liberation for people and the earth, from toxic pollutants in our air, land, and water and freedom from the systems that cause these harms.  Environmental Justice isn’t just about the environment, it’s social and economic justice, health, the quality of your surroundings, access to food and green…

park with beautiful plantings and walking path

Flowers That Beam Community Garden

We worked with residents at Beam Apartments and Townhomes in North Minneapolis to plan and create a mini-park for the community. Starting in 2022, we met residents at community events…  Read More

Man holding award

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…

More Ways to Give

The work to protect Minnesota’s lakes and rivers, to support pollinators, and to create resilient landscapes in all of our communities starts with each of us. We are planting the seeds for a more sustainable future. Thank you for supporting our work with a gift.

Volunteer Information

Note: If you are interested in volunteering as a Lawns to Legumes (L2L) coach to help L2L grant recipients with at-home pollinator habitat projects, please fill out this form on our Blue Thumb Education website.

seedlings in containers ready to be planted

Low-Cost and Accessible Gardening Resources

Do you know there are many resources available for free or at low cost? Some of them may be right in your neighborhood. Have a look below to find out where you can get trees, compost, mulch, and seeds — and to learn more about gardening. We’ll also add upcoming events occasionally.

sculptural wall planter with new plants

38th Street: Goodridge Building Green Wall

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…

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…

View looking up at tree and top corner of building

Renter Resources

  The list below offers many helpful sources of information for renters.

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…

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…

Impact Climate Change in Your Yard With a Rain Garden

Climate change, the long-term change in the Earth’s temperature, is bringing massive and detrimental consequences. What are these consequences and how do they affect us? Have you noticed the increasingly extreme weather? Like heat waves or flooding rains? The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity is the primary cause of climate change, so…

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…

Instagram Links

Join our mailing list Blue Thumb Resilient Yards Learning Series + Workshops Homegrown National Park: 6 Cities Lighting Up the HNP Biodiversity Map Blue Thumb Job Board The Resilient Yard: One Space, Big Impact (Blue Thumb Blog Post) LCCMR Survey Project Gallery Metro Blooms Design + Build Landcare and Maintenance Metro Blooms Design + Build…

Brook Gardens

We started working with the Brook Gardens community in 2019. Community members were co-creators in this project to create more resilient and livable outdoor spaces. Residents set priorities for the…  Read More

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…

Summer Internship: Learning About Raingardens

One thing interns are sure to learn about at Metro Blooms is raingardens. This summer we hosted Althea Kuzniewski, an environmental studies major at the University of Minnesota. Althea came to us through the U’s Institute on the Environment, in an internship supported by Ecolab. She had the job of visiting and assessing raingardens we…

Virtual Consultation Request Confirmation

Thank you for contacting us! You will receive an email confirmation of this request, and another email when your consultation time is scheduled and confirmed by one of our designers. If you’d like to get started in the meantime, our consultation will include a virtual walk-through of your site and you will have some homework…