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Laying out plants in a raingarden

Managing Stormwater With Neighborhood of Raingardens

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…

“Raingarden Refresh” for Neighborhood of Raingardens 2021

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…

Summer Internship: Learning About Raingardens

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…

Happy Birthday, Riverside Plaza Raingarden!

Residents and other community members helped us plant this raingarden at Riverside Plaza on June 18, 2019. This video, by Yordanose Solomone, Metro Blooms Equitable Engagement Manager, celebrates the raingarden’s first birthday and features a song written for it by Riverside composer Ardo Muse and singer Abdihakiin Aden Farrah.* It may be the first raingarden…

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…

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…

Seasonal Raingarden Maintenance Practices

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

Fall Raingarden Maintenance

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

Summer Raingarden Maintenance

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

East Calhoun Neighborhood Of Raingardens

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

Rock For Raingardens Re-Cap

Last Wednesday Metro Blooms’ Rock for Raingardens event took place at the Fine Line Cafe in downtown Minneapolis.  Metro Blooms board members and staff, friends of the bands, landscape design…  Read More

Rock For Raingardens

It’s that time of year again, you know, the time to dance, be entertained by good music and funny landscape architects and celebrate raingardens!  In other words, it’s time for…  Read More

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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.

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Our 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. Learn about our work

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Rich Harrison on Landscape Design, People, Pollinators and Joy

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…

Impact Climate Change in Your Yard With a Rain Garden

Climate change, the long-term change in the Earth’s temperature, is bringing massive and detrimental consequences. What are these consequences and how do they affect us? Have you noticed the increasingly extreme weather? Like heat waves or flooding rains? The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity is the primary cause of climate change, so…