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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…
Raingarden Care: Growing Need for Sustainable Landcare Skills
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 →
Privacy Policy
Who we are Our website address is: https://metroblooms.org. What personal data we collect and why we collect it Comments When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data… Read More →
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…
Conservation Corps MN & Iowa: a Raingarden Partner
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 →
Measuring Runoff on a Permeable City Alley
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 →
Autumn Ridge and Building Capacity
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.
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 →
A Couple That Serves Our Board Together
(photo: Garden nurtured by board members Randy and Bridget Rau) On the Community of Gardeners I have been working with plants and learning about plants for 25-plus years. I love… Read More →
Metro Blooms and Social Enterprise at NEON
(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 →
Metro Blooms, St. Louis Park and the Rainwater Rewards Partnership
(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 →
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 →
Raingarden Maintenance Made Easier: Good Timing and Tools
In a raingarden, there will always be weeding, but you can make it easier on yourself if you have good timing and the right tools. That was one of the… Read More →
Garlic Mustard: Weeds to Watch This Week
Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata If you have ventured out walking the woods this week, you may have noticed clusters of small white flowers on stalks about knee high with triangular… Read More →
A Permeable Alley in a Minneapolis Neighborhood
Lori Fewer is pleased with the new surface on the alley, just installed, behind her house. “It’s beautiful,” she says. The network of interlocking concrete pavers is much more inviting… 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 →
Metro Blooms’ Maintenance Training Pilot Program
The Sustainable Need to Weed “How many of you, if we go out to weed right now, would know what you’re doing?” Anna Bierbauer, our Metro Blooms landscape designer, asks.… Read More →
Workshop Reflections
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 →
Sustainable Lawns: How “Green” is Your Grass?
We are a lawn-abiding citizenry. Dutifully we water, fertilize, and mow, and for our efforts we are rewarded with a lush, well-manicured carpet of grass – the thicker and more… Read More →
Creating Climate Resilient Yards
We live in unsettled times, and nowhere is this more evident than outside our own windows. Through them, we see more extreme weather events every year. Leslie Yetka, of the Freshwater… Read More →
Permeable Pavement Maintenance
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 →
Collecting Native Seeds for Garden Expansion
Many of Minnesota’s native plants are seed factories. Most of our favorite species, while being fairly non-aggressive spreaders in the garden, produce large quantities of viable seed that can delight… 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 →
Art & Stormwater: Black Forest Inn Open House
City of Minneapolis Great Streets Program Recipient Metro Blooms to Unveil Unique Art Installation that Manages Storm Water Runoff Open House to take place at Black Forest Inn on Wednesday,… Read More →
Blue Thumb/Metro Blooms Merger: Frequently Asked Questions
Metro Blooms and Blue Thumb are Merging! The following describes the current understanding of how the Blue Thumb program would be governed and would operate following a merger of the… 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 →
2014 Triumphs And Lessons Learned
Wow. I know I said last year was busy, but 2014 was so busy we hardly had time to blog about, well, anything. Over the last 12 months we’ve worked… Read More →
Raingarden Maintenance: Plant Replacement And Establishment
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 →