News from 2007
- Midwest Home and Garden
- Welcome to the New Blue Thumb Website
- The rise of Southwest’s blue thumbs
- Cultivate a “Blue Thumb:” Plant for Water Quality
- Teen soaks up rain gardening knowledge
- Going green with Blue Thumb
- More lawns are going native
- Consider the Source
- BT Announcement
News Archive
Months: April, May, June, July, August,
All Years
Midwest Home And Garden
The Blue Thumb program was recently featured in the April, 2007 edition of Midwest Home and Garden: http://www.midwesthomemag.com/media/Midwest-Home/April-2007/Tonic-For-Our-Water/
More
Welcome To The New Blue Thumb Website
Welcome to the new Blue Thumb: Planting for Clean Water website. Here you can find information about all aspect of the Blue Thumb program including information on Raingardens, Native Gardens, and Shoreline Stabilization.
More
The Rise Of Southwest’S Blue Thumbs
Southwest Journal, Thursday, May 17, 2007
A primer on building your own rain garden
Backyard puddles and basement flooding used to be the norm when it rained at Kathleen Davies’ Linden Hills home.
“Now I don’t have either,” she said. “And I don’t have to mow.”
These days, wetland plants in Davies’ backyard rain garden drink the water that used to gather in pools on her lawn or drain into her basement. The master gardener for the University of Minnesota Extension Service also planted a rain garden in her front yard to prevent water ...
More
Cultivate A “Blue Thumb:” Plant For Water Quality
First a howling blizzard woke us, Then the rain came down to soak us, And now before the eye can focus - Crocus. ~Lilja Rogers
In our sometimes harried lives, the coming of spring can evoke feelings of connectedness with nature that are often lost in our man-made suburban and city landscapes. Buds emerging on trees and shrubs, flowers pushing through the earth toward the sun, and the neighbors we meet anew after winter’s hibernation all remind us that we are part of a larger, natural order. And, as we look forward to a new growing season, spring provides ...
More
Teen Soaks Up Rain Gardening Knowledge
Every spring for 13 years, Meng Xiong has watched storm water form a large puddle alongside his home on St. Paul's East Side. So, when the opportunity came this year to build a rain garden to soak up excess water, the Central High sophomore jumped at the chance.
During a visit last week, I found Meng Xiong and his friend Houa Lor digging the side-yard garden with three Ramsey County Master Gardeners - Betsy McNulty, Linda Neilson and Rochelle Robideau. Meng Xiong says his parents, brothers and a cousin have helped dig, too.
The ...
More
Going Green With Blue Thumb
Shoreview Press - Press Pubs.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 12:38 PM CDT.
BLAINE - It's that time of year again, when folks haul out shovels, bags of dirt and gardening gloves to spruce up their yards for the summer.
Many area residents have a hankering for neatly-groomed plants and lawns that require fertilizer and constant watering. The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) is suggesting an alternative to the type of gardening that contributes to lowered water quality in area lakes and streams.
The Blue Thumb Project was launched last summer to encourage people to do ...
More
More Lawns Are Going Native
Four geese nibble at Craig Avery's back yard as he stands on a stone patio alongside his gleaming silver grill. And he makes no move to shoo them off. But then, his newly created yard in Minnetonka isn't at all what you would expect. His landscaper seeded it with clover. And the geese help keep it trim. "They are," he said, "just like little lawn mowers."
Avery moved last week into a new species of developments that aims to shrink the vast sea of manicured, watered, mowed and chemical-sprinkled lawns that became an icon of late 20th-century suburbia.
...More
Consider The Source
Consider the Source Preserving something special from Minnesota’s natural history
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources estimates that only traces – less than one percent – of native plant communities remain in a state that was once abundant with prairie and oak savanna. In the urban landscape, we may try to preserve a piece of natural history when we garden with Minnesota native plants. It’s important, however, to make sure that plants making this claim are truly native to Minnesota.
What is native? Since all plants are native to somewhere, definitions are somewhat arbitrary. But what is usually ...
More
Bt Announcement
A Blue Thumb’s Up
This winter while we were all longing for green in the landscape, a group of people who care about clean water were thinking in hues of blue.
Blue Thumb™ is a program originally developed by Dawn Pape of Rice Creek Watershed District as an outreach program to meet water quality goals and to help watershed cities meet federal Clean Water Act mandates. Now, Blue Thumb is a collaborative of professionals from local governmental units (watershed and conservation districts, cities, counties); non-profit and community organizations; the University of Minnesota Extension; and nursery and landscape professionals. ...
More