Saint John's Abbey Arboretum - Nature Sanctuary

04/01/2026

Sap by day, syrup by night 🍁🌖

When there is a lot of sap to cook, it’s more efficient to have one long cooking session rather than multiple.

As a result, we sometimes have a midnight cook! Enjoy these set of photos of cooking maple syrup at night!

Photos by Ryan Unger

03/26/2026

GET READY TO MAPLE SOME SYRUP!! 🍁🍁🍁

Get your adrenaline pumping for the Maple Syrup Festival this Saturday (March 28th, 12-4 PM) by brushing up on how the heck syrup works!

Our latest edition of crudely drawn animation covers the basics of making maple syrup in the Saint John’s Abbey Arboretum!

Want to learn the specifics? You’ll have to attend the Maple Syrup Festival for that! Use the link in our bio for more information!

🍁

03/24/2026

We are supposed to be collecting sap right now, so here’s a speedy explanation on why maple syrup is different shades of it’s golden brown and why it happens!

Maple sap has sugar in the form of sucrose and glucose. The longer it takes for sap to cool, the more time the healthy microbes within the sugar has to activate. The longer you cook, the more they activate, resulting in darker syrup!

The lighter syrup (shorter cooking time) has a lighter maple flavor while the darker syrup (longer cooking time) has a stronger maple flavor. All of it is 100% Grade A Pure Maple Syrup, so whichever one you prefer is the best one!

03/19/2026

March Madness???? More like… March… Plant this! 🏀🌱🌸

While it was too cold for syrup last week, we made the best use of our time to make sure we have our pollinator plants started for the spring!

Over the past few years, we have been converting unused lawn space on campus into habitat for both native prairie species and pollinators!

We started nearly 70 species of prairie flowers and grasses in the and will be plugging them into new and existing prairies this spring!

While they might not win on the court, it sure is a win for native Minnesota habitats!

03/08/2026

1,800 taps collected in under 1.5 hours? Pfft, easy.

Over 50 awesome volunteers came out to the Sugar Bush for sap collection! What took a small group of very dedicated volunteers on Wednesday nearly 5 hours to complete took us just under 1.5 hours today! Many hands make quick work!

We couldn’t do any of this without the help of students, staff and members of our surrounding communities! Thanks to all of you!

If you want to join the action, use the link in our bio to sign up for email updates so you can know when the next volunteer opportunity is. Have we mentioned that if you volunteer with us dring syrup season you get paid in syrup??? We know, what a deal!

03/05/2026

FIRST BOTTLE MAPLE SYRUP FOR THE YEAR LETS GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! 🍁🔥🍁🔥🍁🔥🍁🔥

Well be here all season with you’re syrup production updates (if we aren’t too busy and actually remember to make content)

🍁

02/24/2026

Planting trees in the winter?? Who taught us forestry?!?!?

After collecting red oak acorns in the fall and letting them stratify (or be cold) all winter, we got our acorns started in the greenhouse this week!

These young saplings will grow in the for a few months before they are ready to be transplanted to our Abbey Forest Nursery!

After a few years of growing even more, we’ll transplant them again out onto the Arboretum (where they will always be our big little trees 🥹)!

02/05/2026

We remembered the password, cool! We’ve had no time to post recently, so please enjoy this assortment of things until our next post (we’ll be back next week) 🤗

01/06/2026

How old was this tree? Feeling stumped? Not to worry, we are ringing it up! 🌳🌲🌳

By counting rings on the stump, or each year of growth, we can see that this red oak was roughly 150 years old! This means it was a sapling around the 1870s!!

This stump also had some rots and cracks on the interior, indicating a decline in its health (due to natural reasons). So, it’s a good time to harvest this tree and to plant some saplings this spring to work towards our goal of a more resilient and diverse forest!

01/01/2026

2026 is here in the Saint John's Abbey Arboretum, but let's not move on from 2025 just yet!

Enjoy our favorite trail camera highlights from 2025 all in one place! Many species call the Abbey Arboretum home, but we don't always get to see what they get up to.

Trail cameras are an effective way to get a glimpse of what these critters do without Arboretum staff getting in the way!

View the video on our YouTube page!

Take a look back at our best trail camera highlights of 2025! We are lucky to share this land with so many species that call it home, but we don't get to see...

12/26/2025

Cross Country Ski Trail Conditions as of December 26, 2025 ⛷️❄️

Conditions are fairly rough with all this melting and re-freezing snow! Most trails have a layer of ice, making grip difficult and for some very quick sections of trail.

If you go out on our ski trails, please ski with extra caution! We are hoping conditions improve in the next few days!

12/19/2025

Girls just swan-na have fun 🦢❄️

Trumpeter Swans are a year-round resident of the Abbey Arboretum. During the warmer months, they can be found on many (if not all) of the lakes in the Arb, nesting and feeding.

As the lakes freeze over during the winter, the restored wetland is a popular location for dozens of swans at a time since the flowing water can often be ice free, even in the coldest of temperatures.

Here is a compilation of our best swan pictures from the past few years!