2022 Environmental Initiative Award, Local Sustainability Impacts, for Brook Gardens: Clean Water + Livability, a multi-partner project engaging a rental community on co-creation of more resilient landscapes 2022 Environmental Excellence Award, Minnesota Erosion Control Association 2021 Summer Blossom Award, Grand Neighborhood Garden, City of Brooklyn Park, for our work engaging rental communities on co-creation of…
The more nature, the better, for Ben Swarts. A couple of years ago, when he moved his business, Hardshell Fitness, into a former gas station on 38th Street at Longfellow, Swarts “threw” some seeds down behind the building. Today that space is a beautiful wildflower garden. Now he looks at the gray expanse of paved…
Last summer was the first time we did a Neighborhood of Raingardens program in one community with a major focus on maintenance. The Sheridan Neighborhood Association in Minneapolis wanted to provide previous participants with guidance on caring for their raingardens. So we offered a “raingarden refresh” program. During a one-and-a-half-hour visit, we checked a participant’s…
(Photo: Jumping Worm, Flickr, Alfredo Eloisa | CC BY-NC-SA) Jumping worms are relatively new to Minnesota, but they can quickly damage lawns, plants and soil. They look very much like common earthworms, but they have a characteristic way of moving — they may appear to be jumping — when disturbed. They have been described…
Minnesota Mutual Aid Resources Support North Minneapolis Neighbors Affected by ICE Raids Feb 19 Coffee Chat: Sowing Seeds for Our Future Metro Blooms Board Member Application Metro Blooms Design+Build Consultations Apply to be a Minneapolis Tree Ambassador Join our mailing list Blog Post: Plan a Pollinator Garden From Scratch Blue Thumb Resources Metro Blooms Design…
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…
For over ten years, we have worked with neighborhoods, cities, and so many other partners to install accessible and functional projects with their residents.
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…
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…
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 →
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 →
I developed a passion for ecology and restoration work in college. The first time I walked in an expanse of prairie changed how I saw the world around me. I… 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 →
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 →
If you want to change your lawn, ask yourself what you expect from your new landscape. How different do you want it to look? How much time are you prepared… Read More →
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 →
Landscape and photo by Russ Henry, Giving Tree Gardens We often get questions in the fall regarding raingarden maintenance. One of our Landscape Designers, Andy Novak, recently shared this thoughtful… Read More →
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 is a program of Metro Blooms that aims to protect waterways, create habitat, and transform communities by working with blocks of residents to re-imagine what their alleyway looks like… Read More →
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 →
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 →
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 →
N. MPLS– This Earth Day, Metro Blooms is teaming up with Project for Pride in Living (PPL) to build a raingarden. Not just any raingarden mind you, but a raingarden… Read More →
NEW YORK– This Thanksgiving, I chose to visit the High Line, a world famous park built on top of an abandoned elevated train line above Manhattan’s West Side. The park… Read More →
