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 →
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 →
Metro Blooms grew out of a volunteer-powered garden recognition program, the Minneapolis Garden Awards program, which was first established by the City of Minneapolis’ Committee on the Urban Environment (CUE). Between 1979 and 2016, hundreds of trained volunteer evaluators visited thousands of gardens, every year recognizing and celebrating excellence, and inspiring a proud culture of…
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…
We have adjusted our work to pandemic times, experiencing challenges but also opportunities. Here’s an update on Autumn Ridge Apartments in Brooklyn Park.
Residents and other community members helped us plant this raingarden at Riverside Plaza on June 18, 2019. This video, by Yordanose Solomone, Metro Blooms Equitable Engagement Manager, celebrates the raingarden’s first birthday and features a song written for it by Riverside composer Ardo Muse and singer Abdihakiin Aden Farrah.* It may be the first raingarden…
Who We Are Metro Blooms is a nonprofit that partners with communities to create resilient landscapes and foster clean watersheds, embracing the values of equity and inclusion to solve environmental challenges. We believe that collaboration with community is the most impactful way to heal our earth and we strive to center relationships in all that…
For over ten years, we have worked with neighborhoods, cities, and so many other partners to install accessible and functional projects with their residents.
Working in conjunction with numerous partners, this project led to the first permeable alleyway, privately owned, in Minneapolis. We monitored runoff in the alley for a year. Then, in the… Read More →
This project works to transform the impermeable concrete landscape and improve outdoor livability at Riverside Plaza through participatory landscape design, installation, and care focused on stormwater management and urban habitat.… Read More →
In 2017, the Lynnhurst Neighborhood Association (LYNAS) started partnering with Metro Blooms to promote and install clean water and pollinator-friendly practices in neighborhood yards. LYNAS’ environmental committee created the Lynnhurst… Read More →
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 →
Metro Blooms began working with the City of Champlin in 2014 to maintain large-scale rain gardens that infiltrate runoff from the Champlin City Hall and Police Department. That partnership has… Read More →
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…
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 →
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 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 – 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…
More and more, people understand the value of a raingarden as a green solution to preventing runoff that leads to water pollution and downstream flooding. At Metro Blooms, we are… Read More →
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 →
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…
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 →
How well does permeable pavement reduce runoff? Metro Blooms set out to answer this question in a privately-owned alley in Minneapolis’ Standish-Ericsson neighborhood. We compared how much rain flowed down… Read More →
Maintaining raingardens to support clean water, provide habitat and save money
Metro Blooms is coordinating a major landscape renovation at an affordable housing complex in Brooklyn Park involving many partners, including residents, the owner, local government, a community organization and the watershed district.
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 →
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 →
(Caption: The NEON Property Maintenance program invests in human capital. Sheltonn Johnson, manager of program) Sheltonn Johnson now sees plants that he used to walk by every day without ever… 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 →
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 →
(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 →