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 →
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…
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…
When Metro Blooms is in the field, there’s a good chance that the crew on site are wearing yellow helmets. If so, they are likely a crew from Conservation Corps… Read More →
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 →
Board member Carol Kuechler’s story with Metro Blooms: In 2007, I first saw Metro Blooms’ work while touring two Minneapolis neighborhoods where raingardens and other stormwater management strategies prevented water… Read More →
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 →
(Photo courtesy of the City of St. Louis Park) “I am a raingarden” signs have sprouted like wildflowers in some St. Louis Park neighborhoods this summer. They are located in… Read More →
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 →
(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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
http://www.kare11.com/life/home-garden/grow-with-kare/grow-with-kare-planting-resilient-yards/429656396
You’ve got this great new permeable pavement in your driveway. Now what? As with everything we value, some level of maintenance is required in order to keep it looking good… Read More →
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 →
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 →
Take time to “smell the roses” with the first of 3 eye-catching segments with Belinda Jensen featuring a few of our 2014 top garden award-winners! Tune in the next several… Read More →
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 →
Seasonal Raingarden Maintenance Practices Each season has a small list of tasks associated with good raingarden maintenance practices. By staying on top of maintenance each season, problems can be avoided… Read More →
As you may have read in our recent blog post ‘Green Streets for Blue Waters’, our two year project in partnership with the City of Bloomington just wrapped up. The project… Read More →
Hello All, We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the participants of the Bloomington Green Streets for Blue Waters program for taking part in this important project and give… Read More →
On April 12th, 2014 more then 35 neighbors from two blocks in the Lake Nokomis watershed got together to reimagine their alleyway. Why? How? Where? Was there food? you may be… Read More →
Marcella Grandpre is a life-long gardener and longtime supporter of Metro Blooms. She became a volunteer in 2005 when a master gardener told her about us. She became a garden evaluator… Read More →
Barb Gasterland is one of our longtime volunteers. She started out as a garden evaluator in 2005, when her interest in a raingarden movement happening at the time led her… Read More →
On November 7th, 2013 over 150 people gathered at the Columbia Manor in Northeast Minneapolis to recognize beautiful Minneapolis gardens, and the people that create them, at our annual Minneapolis… Read More →
Last weekend, 14 families in the East Calhoun neighborhood of Minneapolis spent some time getting dirty and helping out the environment. What were they doing? Planting their raingardens of course!… Read More →
This past Tuesday, myself, Mark Pedelty (a professor at the U of MN), and three of his students had the pleasure of learning about the history of Lake Nokomis from… Read More →
This post was written by Naomi Sachs, a landscape designer and Founding Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network. Many people talk about the restorative benefits of gardening and the reasons… Read More →
To kick off a new year of staff, board and volunteer biographies (that’s right volunteers, I’m coming for you next) I interviewed Bryan Pynn, Metro Blooms’ director of design and… Read More →
