The Garden In Spring
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 →
Search Results
Searched for: spring
Springtime Raingarden Maintenance
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 →
Don’t Let Spring Melt The Erosion And Sediment Controls On Your Site
First published by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Erosion issues are at their worst in the spring with melting snow and lots of rain. Before snow melt or rainfall, make… Read More →
Early Spring Strategies For Your Raingarden
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 →
Spotlight Projects: Spring 2012
All of us here at Metro Blooms are excited for our 2012 projects… we have dozens! 😀There are two however that we’d like to describe more in depth: Urban Homeworks… Read More →
Bringing Beauty to the Brooklyn Park Small Business Center
Drive along Brooklyn Boulevard in Brooklyn Park, and you’ll pass a typical sprawling parking lot for a shopping center. But look a little closer, and you’ll see something different about the green strip bordering the road. Amidst the typical turfgrass, cheerful clumps of native grasses and flowers beckon visitors, plantings arranged in gently curving beds…
Environmental Justice
For Metro Blooms, Environmental Justice means healing and liberation for people and the earth, from toxic pollutants in our air, land, and water and freedom from the systems that cause these harms. Environmental Justice isn’t just about the environment, it’s social and economic justice, health, the quality of your surroundings, access to food and green…
Jordan Area Community Council Garden
We worked with the Jordan Area Community Council (JACC) and Rusty and the Crew to add pollinator-friendly plantings in the JACC community garden in North Minneapolis. In spring 2022, volunteers… Read More →
38th Street: Goodridge Building Green Wall
During the six years that Becca Cerra has had a studio at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC), she never noticed the Goodridge Building, one of CAFAC’s neighbors at George Floyd Square. With a non-descript brick front, it looked like just another quiet office space among a string of local businesses that make up the…
Help Tuck Pollinators into Bed for the Winter
“Leaving the leaves” is how we can help pollinators get ready for cold weather. Last autumn, Jessica Miller took some of her neighbors’ raked-up leaves and spread them out in her yard. She put layers in her garden beds and small piles around her trees and shrubs. In a society that prizes the pristine lawn…
Awards Recognizing Metro Blooms
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…
38th Street: More Nature at Hardshell Fitness
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…
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.
Nikolai Fjelstad De Santiago
Boulevard Bioswales: Improving Water Quality, Conserving Pollinators, Strengthening Communities
When you walk through your neighborhood, it is not uncommon to see a tree, in a boulevard, marked with a big “X” in bright, neon-green paint. This green “X” indicates that the tree is an ash tree, a target of one of the nation’s most infamous insect pests, the emerald ash borer (EAB). This beetle,…
Standish Ericsson Permeable Alley
Working in conjunction with numerous partners, this project led to the first permeable alleyway, privately owned, in Minneapolis. We monitored runoff in the alley for a year. Then, in the… Read More →
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…
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 →
Ragweed and Goldenrod: Weeds to Watch This Week
(Above, a Canada goldenrod invasion) We’ve been doing raingarden maintenance lately. This includes pulling a lot of ragweed and Canada goldenrod. Read on for more about these invasives. Ragweed, Ambrosia Recently… Read More →
Garlic Mustard: Weeds to Watch This Week
Garlic Mustard, Alliaria petiolata If you have ventured out walking the woods this week, you may have noticed clusters of small white flowers on stalks about knee high with triangular… 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 →
Collecting Native Seeds for Garden Expansion
Many of Minnesota’s native plants are seed factories. Most of our favorite species, while being fairly non-aggressive spreaders in the garden, produce large quantities of viable seed that can delight… 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 →
Seasonal Garden Guide
As a landscape designer, the most common question that I get asked when walking around a yard with a homeowner is “How do I maintain all of these plants, and… Read More →
Fall Maintenance for Raingardens and Native Plantings
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 →
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 →
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 →
Raingarden Maintenance: Plant Replacement And Establishment
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 →
Green Streets For Blue Waters
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 →