Metro Blooms

Programs: Raingarden installation/neighborhood projects program. We installed 93 raingardens and 43 boulevard bioswales in 10 neighborhood projects in 2017. Through our blooming alleys program, we installed 25 raingardens, 24 native plantings, and, 17 permeable pavement systems. Additional installations included two infiltration columns to improve water retention on a residential site.

metro blooms workshops teach individuals about the benefits of raingardens and how to install them on their property. Workshops provide information and individualized advice by master gardeners and a landscape designer. An onsite consultation and a raingarden design can be provided for participants at their property. Metro blooms maintained relationships with existing city and watershed district partners to host 11 resilient yard workshops and 2 alternative turf workshops raingarden workshops for 600 attendees, and provided 223 onsite consultations and design services. In may of 2015, the rice creek watershed district board of managers approved the blue thumb transfer agreement. Blue thumb planting for clean water is a public private partnership program that promotes native plants, raingardens, and shoreline stabilizations to reduce runoff and improve water quality, providing an online one stop shop where partners share resources to promote native plants, raingardens and shoreline stabilization. People benefited included: 44 of partners, 254 of people who pledged to plant, 4,144 of people who came through state fair exhibit.

site maintenance program: we maintained 16 minneapolis public school district sites 2 commonbond affordable housing sites, 1 commercial site (sentyrz market in minneapolis, mn) and 8 raingardens in champlin, mn.