Working at Autumn Ridge: Year Three, in a Pandemic
We have adjusted our work to pandemic times, experiencing challenges but also opportunities. Here’s an update on Autumn Ridge Apartments in Brooklyn Park.
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Nikolai Fjelstad De Santiago
Employment
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…
Neighborhood Projects
For over ten years, we have worked with neighborhoods, cities, and so many other partners to install accessible and functional projects with their residents.
Riverside Plaza
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 →
St. Louis Park Neighborhood of Rain Gardens
Metro Blooms has worked with the City of St. Louis Park and its Rainwater Rewards program since 2018, when Metro Blooms installed 20 rain gardens in participating residents’ yards. Through… Read More →
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 →
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…
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…
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 →
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…
Our Own Crew, and Teaching Sustainable Landcare
Metro Blooms is putting together our first crew! They’ll be among the first “students” in a training program we’ve been developing to teach sustainable landcare. We’re planning to teach the… 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 →
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 →
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 →
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: 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Blooming Alleys Partnerships
In the fall of 2014 Metro Blooms worked with some great community members just to the west of Lake Nokomis to install the first ever “Blooming Alley” in Minneapolis. Since… 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 →