Rich Harrison on Landscape Design, People, Pollinators and Joy

Man holding award

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 Blooms’ work with raingardens, so he reached out for more information. Before he knew it, he was volunteering. Then he was contracting as a landscape designer. Ten years and hundreds of raingarden installations later, Harrison is Co-Director of Design at Metro Blooms Design+Build, where he focuses on partnering with communities to create more sustainable landscapes.

For his work with Metro Blooms and the volunteering he does on his own time, Harrison was recently honored with the Public Service Award by the Minnesota Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. “It’s humbling,” says Harrison, who had no idea he had even been nominated. The award is given for exemplary public service professionally or personally. Harrison was nominated for his work at Metro Blooms and for the time he gives to organizations like the Loppet Foundation and Dark Clouds Silver Lining, a Minnesota United FC fan club that benefits many local charities.

At Metro Blooms, he has worked on a great diversity of projects, including large ones like the first permeable alley in Minneapolis and designing and managing installation of a complete landscape renovation at Masjid An Nur — the “Eco Mosque” — in North Minneapolis. One of his main roles, he says, is sharing his knowledge about sustainable design, which he does with home gardeners attending workshops, landscape architecture students, conservation agency staff, maintenance teams and residents of large rental complexes, as well as with youth and young adults at landcare training events.

Man holding up potted plant in front of a group of people — Harrison sharing the benefits of native plants at a community planting event

For Harrison, the best part of his job is working with people. In 2017, as part of planning a landscape renovation, he guided community design conversations with residents of Autumn Ridge Apartments in Brooklyn Park. This was the beginning of Metro Blooms’ program partnering with rental communities to recreate their landscapes. His work here laid the foundation for a key element of the program, working closely with residents to center their priorities. Harrison says that renters don’t usually have a say in the design of their shared outdoor spaces, and this work is special for him.

“Being part of that process is great. I get to listen to the needs of the community that lives on these properties, then we get to act on it,” Harrison says.

More recently, he’s been working with the Riverside Plaza community in Minneapolis on creating a small park with raingardens, pollinator plantings and a healthy tree canopy. The park will allow residents, young children and elders alike, to connect with nature where they live.

On a personal level, Harrison wants others to feel the same happiness he experiences watching nature in his own yard—the same yard where nothing was growing all those years ago when he first connected with Metro Blooms. There’s a raingarden there now, and the yard is teeming with life. Harrison has vastly improved his photography skills recording all of it.

Photos from Harrison’s yard

goldfinch on coneflower — Goldfinch having a coneflower meal

There was the picture he took of the “happiest bee in the world,” a bumble bee leaving a flower with a droplet of nectar on its tongue. Another favorite is a series of photos he took of a bumble bee doing the purple coneflower pollen ring dance. Or the video he took of a goldfinch chowing down on a coneflower seed head, all the while wondering at how something as simple as that one plant could provide so much for the ecosystem.

“Experiencing that and watching the rain garden evolve and witnessing all the life that comes to it — all the bumble bees, all the butterflies, all the bugs, all the birds — it brings me great joy, experiencing that first-hand,” he says. “ And I just hope my involvement in these rewilding projects and education programs can bring that joy to others right outside their door.”

— Aleli Balagtas, Metro Blooms Editor