This past summer, we teamed up with neighborhoods, cities, and the Conservation Corps of Minnesota & Iowa (CCM) to install raingardens in residents’ yards and teach them about sustainable landscaping practices along the way. These efforts were part of our Neighborhood of Raingardens program, which aims to make clean-water planting projects easier and more affordable…
A pollinator garden on 38th Street and Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis, steps from our office, is a garden for all seasons. At the height of the summer, there are blooming coneflowers and black-eyed Susans. Right now the garden is blanketed in white, the coneflowers covered with snow hats. It’s the perfect backdrop for viewing the…
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…
One thing interns are sure to learn about at Metro Blooms is raingardens. This summer we hosted Althea Kuzniewski, an environmental studies major at the University of Minnesota. Althea came to us through the U’s Institute on the Environment, in an internship supported by Ecolab. She had the job of visiting and assessing raingardens we…
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 →
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…
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…
Maintaining raingardens to support clean water, provide habitat and save money
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 →
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 →
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 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 →
Seasonal Raingarden Maintenance Practices Each season has a small list of tasks associated with good raingarden maintenance practices. By staying on top of maintenance each season, problems can be avoided… Read More →
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 →
Well folks it’s time. It seems to me like our spattering of 70 degree days are done for the year, which means you can trade in your lawn mower for… Read More →
Throughout the summer and fall of 2013, Metro Blooms has been working hard with the Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa to install raingardens in five different neighborhoods in Minneapolis.… Read More →
I hope you’ve been enjoying your time in the garden this summer and if you just haven’t had the time to do much maintenance yet (gasp!) it’s about time you… Read More →
Last weekend, 14 families in the East Calhoun neighborhood of Minneapolis spent some time getting dirty and helping out the environment. What were they doing? Planting their raingardens of course!… Read More →
Now that the sun is finally beginning to shine a little longer and our days are getting a bit warmer (I said a bit, not a LOT warmer yet), we… Read More →
Ever get that pre-Mother’s Day planting itch? Early Spring is a great time to sneak a bit of color into your garden before the bulk of the plants start blooming!… Read More →
In the early part of spring, after the snow has melted and before new growth has started for the season, gardeners can remove last year’s decaying growth. We call this… Read More →
Hello All, We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the participants of the Bloomington Green Streets for Blue Waters program for taking part in this important project and give… Read More →
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.
Bendu Kollie wants to learn as much as she can about the plants growing in her church’s raingarden. Her church community, All Nations Seventh-Day Adventist Church, planted it in August with the help of Metro Blooms in a landscape renovation to manage stormwater and help pollinators. She hopes it plants seeds of stewardship among the…
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.
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.
