Autumn Ridge
Autumn Ridge Apartments is a 17-acre, 366-unit rental community in Brooklyn Park. This is our pilot site for our equitable engagement framework, which includes resident-centered design, installation, and training to… Read More →
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Neighborhood of Raingardens
Our Neighborhood of Raingardens program began in 2009 to support large-scale community participation in the installation of raingardens and to build awareness of raingardens and other actions you can take in your landscape to protect clean water in our environment. Typically, these projects are a cost share between a neighborhood organization and property owners. Participants attend…
Redesigning Outdoor Spaces With Residents at Rental Communities in Brooklyn Park
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 →
Equitable Engagement
At Metro Blooms we strive to make engagement equitable through real relationships, supporting opportunities for silenced voices to be heard, and implementing what we’ve heard from those most impacted by environmental and social injustices. We prioritize partnering with Black, Indigenous, People of Color, renters, and low-income communities. Intentionality: We collaborate with local community members and…
Mission + Vision + Equity
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.
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…
Equitable Engagement in Environmental Work
On June 18, dozens of community volunteers turned out to help Metro Blooms plant a raingarden at Riverside Plaza, a huge, high-density apartment complex in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. They pulled… Read More →
A Decade of Neighborhood of Raingardens
One of our longest-running programs, Neighborhood of Raingardens, turns 10 this year. Over the past decade, we’ve been installing raingardens in people’s yards, neighborhood by neighborhood, while teaching residents about landscaping practices that can help reduce stormwater runoff, a major cause of water pollution. Our goal is to help people make their property and community…
Raingarden Care and Stormwater Credits at MPS
Maintaining raingardens to support clean water, provide habitat and save money
Wrapping Up 2018 with a Great Big Thanks
Thank you, friends. Thank you for taking action this year to restore the ecological function of our yards and neighborhoods, whether you were attending our workshops, volunteering your time with… Read More →
Connecting to the Words “Grow. Bloom. Inspire!”
Board member Norman Greenberg talks about Metro Blooms: I was looking for an organization that would allow me to give back locally and also follow a longtime passion, gardening. The… Read More →
Why This Board Member Supports Metro Blooms
I developed a passion for ecology and restoration work in college. The first time I walked in an expanse of prairie changed how I saw the world around me. I… Read More →
Jun Tang Maps Pollinator Sweet Spots
Jun Tang is committed to making the Twin Cities and beyond more habitable for some of our smallest denizens: pollinators. A regional planner for Metro Blooms, Tang has developed a… Read More →
Your Soil Health Really Matters
Please call it soil, not dirt. The rock, clay, minerals and silt that make up dirt are largely devoid of the organic matter and living organisms in the complex ecosystem… Read More →
Lynnhurst Garden Tour: Raingardens, a Native Planting, a Bee Lawn
Three raingardens and a yard with native plantings were featured on a recent tour of a Metro Blooms project in Minneapolis’ Lynnhurst neighborhood. They were part of a program that… Read More →
A Blooming Alley in St. Paul
Metro Blooms of Minneapolis has taken its work to make alleys greener across the river into St. Paul. Four raingardens, three areas of native plantings and a permeable pavement system… Read More →
Metro Blooms at the One Water Summit
(Caption: Some people bring their best game faces to important events. Community Engagement Manager Kimberly Carpenter brought Metro Blooms’ best flower faces. Photo courtesy of Hennepin County Extension). Metro Blooms… Read More →
Weeds to Watch This Week
Weeds, a.k.a. Wild Urban Plants What is a weed? Emerson said they are plants whose utility has yet to be found. From an ecological perspective, they are colonizers of disturbed… Read More →
Metro Blooms: Seeking Environmental Justice in the Harrison Neighborhood
If Metro Blooms were a vehicle (green energy-powered, of course), the community would be the driver. The destination is always the same: clean water, habitat and a more beautiful environment.… Read More →
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 →
Be a grower instead of mower: eco-landscaping expert joins Metro Blooms
The way Douglas Owens-Pike sees it, people can spend less time and money on their landscaping, all the while creating more beautiful, resilient yards. They can reduce their grass-cutting and… 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 →
Seasonal Garden Guide
As a landscape designer, the most common question that I get asked when walking around a yard with a homeowner is “How do I maintain all of these plants, and… Read More →
Fall Maintenance for Raingardens and Native Plantings
Landscape and photo by Russ Henry, Giving Tree Gardens We often get questions in the fall regarding raingarden maintenance. One of our Landscape Designers, Andy Novak, recently shared this thoughtful… Read More →
Metro Blooms Expands Monarch Conservation in Minnesota Metropolitan Area
As we approach monarch conservation from all angles, we rely on partners who work in different arenas, with different, yet related, expertise. Focusing on restoration of native plants in… 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 →
Blooming Alleys Partnership Results
In our first post about the Blooming Alleys Partnership I described the collaborative meeting we had in April, here at Sabathani, with all of our project partners to figure out what… Read More →
What Is Blooming Alleys All About?
Blooming Alleys is a program of Metro Blooms that aims to protect waterways, create habitat, and transform communities by working with blocks of residents to re-imagine what their alleyway looks like… Read More →
The Garden In Spring
In the early part of spring, after the snow has melted and before new growth has started for the season, gardeners can remove last year’s decaying growth. We call this… Read More →
Planting For Pollinators: How Raingardens Can Help
In a world without bees, your next plate of food would have considerably less variety. By some estimates, one of every three bites of food we take depends on pollinators like… Read More →