Creating attractive, ecologically sound landscapes throughout the Twin Cities' river valleys.
Great River Greening provides a complete range of ecological, design and volunteer services. Through our fee-for-service program, Greening Strategies, we work with communities, businesses, agencies and other groups to meet their needs and cover our costs.
We provide:
- Expertise in ecological restoration and native landscape design and installation.
- Extensive experience with a wide range of sites, from degraded urban sites to suburban nature preserves.
- Unparalleled success in community outreach.
- An excellent track record of securing project funding from state, federal and private foundation sources.
- Identify and select planting or restoration sites
- Conduct plant inventories
- Identify potential problems
- Conduct soil analysis and evaluation
- Review plans, designs and stormwater management strategies
- Identify design needs and constraints
- Prepare plant species list
- Identify design strategies
- Prepare landscape designs using native plants
- Give design presentations
- Make cost estimates
- Create ecological stormwater management designs
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Example: River Park, Brooklyn Park
- Use inventory and site analysis to develop restoration plans and estimate costs
- Manage and monitor restoration projects for early and long-term phases
- Consult with and assist landowners or managers in implementing management plans
Site preparation
- Develop site preparation plans for various sites and types of plantings
- Coordinate contractors and delivery of materials
- Coordinate utility locations
- Prepare site for planting by volunteer work groups
- Order plant materials or seed and arrange delivery
- Lay out planting site to facilitate planting by volunteers
- Supervise installation by contractors
- Coordinate planting-day activities
- Identify number of volunteers needed and recruitment strategies
- Help develop recruitment methods and materials
- Conduct volunteer supervisor training
- Develop and coordinate planting-day logistics for volunteers
- Plan and coordinate planting-day events
- Conduct training sessions tailored to clients' needs in such areas as maintenance, volunteer planning and supervision and landscaping with native plants.
- Develop adaptive management plans for properties
- Provide technical assistance in managing properties, including maintenance tasks such as burning and spot spraying.
- Monitor and inventory sites to identify potential threats to plantings
- Mitigate lost plantings
"Great River Greening helped the Science Museum of Minnesota create outdoor parks that have tremendous social and educational value. The native planting design Greening created is beautiful, sustainable and, above all, a learning tool for our thousands of visitors."
-Leslie Cook, Director of Development, Science Museum of Minnesota
"Concerned with the needs of the community in which we live and work, the Twin Cities Assembly Plant leadership has partnered with the skilled staff of Great River Greening to implement ecologically sensitive land management approaches for our Mississippi riverfront property."
-Brad Bystrom, Plant Engineering Supervisor, Ford Motor Company, Twin Cities Assembly Plant
"We at the Port Authority are proud of our success in transforming disused lands into community economic assets-success we share with Great River Greening, which has proven extremely adept at meeting our tenants' diverse needs. When we want to make landscaping improvements on riverfront property, we turn first to Great River Greening."
-John Young, Vice President for Industrial Development, Saint Paul Port Authority
To learn more about these services, contact:
Deborah Karasov, Executive Director
