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Years: 2008, 2007,

Website Helps You Get A Great Yard With Less Mowing And Watering

Video at http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=77972

"We come out here and we feel like it's holding Minnesota in its arms. It's gathering in the good wet Minnesota and converting it to blooms and oxygen," homeowner Ted Kiesselbach said of his yard full of rain gardens.

The area is a kaleidoscope of lush green plants and colorful blooms. And when you get up close you find them alive with equally-colorful insects.

"There's a lot of vitality here," Kiesselbach said.

Brimming with vitality, these patches are rooted in practicality.

"We were getting lots of water in the basement," Kiesselbach ...
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Kare 11 Features Blue Thumb: The Secret To Leisurely And Eco-Friendly Landscaping

"Blue Thumb - Planting for Clean Water" assists residents in planning and planting native gardens, raingardens, and shorelines with native plants.

By visiting http://bluethumb.org/, homeowners can find planting blueprints, a plant selector tool, local retailers and landscapers, grant information, how-to guides, and more. Blue Thumb plantings create gorgeous landscapes that provide great habitat for birds and butterflies while decreasing all of the top water quality concerns, the need for herbicides and pesticides, air pollution from mowing and drinking water used for irrigation.

View Belinda and Bobby Jensen's "Grow with KARE" segment on Blue Thumb at: http://www.kare11.com/video/sponsored/player_grow.aspx?aid=78567&storyid=519063

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Channel 12

To view video, please follow this link: http://www.twelve.tv/news/newsitem.aspx?newsid=334&newsitemid=6874


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Want Cleaner Lakes? Start In Your Own Back Yard

Good gardening practices can help a yard thrive and keep nearby waters clean, as illustrated by efforts in the Rice Creek Watershed District.

BLUE THUMB PLANTING FOR CLEAN WATER

For more information, go to www.bluethumb.org. Grants are administered by county conservation districts.

Other watershed districts may offer clean-water gardening grants. For help finding a district, go to www.cleanwatermn.org or www.mnwatershed.org.

By MARIA ELENA BACA , Star Tribune Last update: June 18, 2008 - 12:59 AM Dawn Gustafson spotted a Monarch butterfly in her back garden one morning last week. It darted from the golden alexander to ...
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Rain Man

CARAG - Steve and Connie Green's frontyard garden at 34th Street & Hennepin Avenue has been part of the annual neighborhood garden tour for several years.

But lately it's the system used to water the garden that's drawing community attention.

Using a network of gutters, pipes, pumps and a 1,000-gallon tank, Steve has developed a rainwater reclamation setup that saves up to 12,000 gallons each year. He and several neighbors reuse the water throughout the spring and summer on adjoining gardens.

"In every sense of the word, it's a green idea," Steve said.

Steve, 65, and ...
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Metro Blooms Offers Grants For Rain Gardens

Link to Video and KARE 11 website

The local gardening group Metro Blooms will provide information and some money for Hennepin County residents willing to dig into a rain garden project.

"We've got Virginia Bluebells over here. This is an iris," Minnehaha Creek Watershed Educator Julie Westerlund said as she pointed out specific plants in a Lori Anderson's Minneapolis yard.

The patch of plants is like a treasure chest for green thumbs.

"They have great root systems," Westerlund said of the native plants surrounding her.

The collection of plants and grasses is called a ...
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Local Clean Water Program Recognized

Blaine — The Blue Thumb–Planting for Clean Water program, which was started by the Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD), will receive the Governor's Award – Minnesota Government Reaching Environmental Achievements Together (MN GREAT!) on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at the Minnesota Air, Water and Waste Environmental Conference.

The Blue Thumb program is an online outreach program with A-to-Z information to help residents plan and plant native gardens, raingardens and shorelines with native plants. The Web site bluethumb.org features planting blueprints, a plant selector tool, local retailers and landscapers, grant information, how-to guides and more.

The 17th annual award honors ...
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Raingarden Guide Poster

Poster TEXT: What do you plant in that backyard low spot where the grass won’t grow?

One solution may be to plant a raingarden.

A raingarden is a depression designed to catch rainwater runoff in your yard. It is planted with plants that don’t mind getting partially flooded on occasion. The raingarden is positioned to prevent stormwater from reaching paved surfaces and contributing to polluted runoff going to our lakes and rivers. Raingardens provide wildlife habitat and winter interest in your yard.

The Blue Thumb Guide to Raingardens is an illustrated how-to manual with details about raingarden ...
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Raingarden Guide Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 15, 2008 Contact Elizabeth Storey, 651-644-8888

New Guide to Raingardens available to residents of Capitol Region Watershed District

Have you ever wondered what to plant in that low spot in your backyard where the grass won’t grow because water puddles there after it rains? Or how to fix the erosion gully where rainwater drains away from one of your downspouts? Well one solution may be to plant a raingarden.

A raingarden is a depression designed to catch rainwater runoff in your yard. It is planted with plants that don’t mind getting partially flooded ...
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Blue: It's The New Green

Pioneer Press http://www.twincities.com/life/ci_7934793 Article Last Updated: 01/12/2008 11:35:54 PM CST

Last year, Twin Cities Green ushered in a new era of environmentally conscious lifestyle shopping. This year, the retailer might want to consider a name change.

To Twin Cities Blue.

Advertising agency JWT, known for its trend forecasting, has declared blue the new green and submitted it as one of the top 10 trends of 2008. The deepening color of earth friendliness is being attributed to an increased focus on climate change, which relates directly to the seas and the sky - both blue.

Another sign ...
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Epa Launches "Green Infrastructure" Plan To Reduce Stormwater Runoff,

EPA Launches "Green Infrastructure" Plan To Reduce Stormwater Runoff, Sewer Overflows

1/17/2008

Washington, D.C. - The EPA, with state and national partners, released a comprehensive plan to reduce runoff and increase environmental and economic benefits for communities. The strategy will help reduce stormwater runoff and sewer overflows by promoting "green infrastructure" approaches, such as green roofs, trees and tree boxes, rain gardens, and porous pavements. Green infrastructure techniques, technologies, and practices reduce the amount of water and pollutants that run off a site. These tools have many other benefits, including cost savings, improved air quality, urban ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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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.

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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 ...
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