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Almost every landscaper and garden designer I know loves the Minnesota-strain redbud tree (Cercis canadensis), and with good reason. These  gorgeous spring-flowering trees seem to have a halo of pink blooms when they are in flower, which is typically mid-May. They hold onto the blooms for nearly three weeks, about twice the time of many other spring-flowering trees. They can be grown on a single stem or multiple stems and develop a horizontal shape on top that is striking in the landscape.

With our long winter, I wondered: will the redbuds bloom in 2018? The last time redbuds did not consistently bloom was in 2013-2014, which was a tough winter—long, snowy, with persistent cold temperatures. This winter has certainly been long, but not necessarily extremely cold in the parts of the state where redbuds are grown. (All bets are off for those folks places like Embarrass and International Falls, MN, where temps hit the -40s F a few times in 2017-2018.) According to the National Weather Service records, the lowest-low in Minneapolis all winter was -16 on New Year’s Eve. That’s not that low, which makes me hopeful that the redbuds will bloom, no matter how much snow and cold weather we had in April.

And, that’s good news. The Minnesota-strain redbud is a pretty plant with an interesting story. Redbuds, which are native to places like Illinois and southern Wisconsin but not Minnesota, were planted back in the 1950s at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. To the surprise of the arb researchers, some of the trees survived and the seed from those trees was planted to create the Minnesota-strain. You can find redbuds in almost any nursery in the southern half of the state now.

When we moved to our new house in 2016, one of the first trees we planted was a redbud. I’m hoping this one (photo of bud, above left) and all the other redbuds bloom in the next few weeks.

Readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park in St. Paul. During the coldest time of the year, I love to visit the conservatory to soak up the humidity and warmth as well as to admire the exotic plants.It’s a bit like taking a trip to the tropics, without leaving town.

This year happens to be the 100th anniversary of the conservatory at Como Park and so we decided to mark that event with an article in Northern Gardener. I was thrilled to be able to write this piece and show some of my photos of the conservatory. You can read the article online by clicking the image above, or you can see it in the January/February issue of Northern Gardener.

What’s your favorite way to get through the winter?

Sometimes — in the garden, in work, in home life — you just have to face that big task and DO IT! That was my situation on Sunday when I finally faced up to the massive pile of apples waiting to be processed.

To say this has been a good year for apples in Minnesota is an understatement. Everywhere, the apples have been prolific, perhaps due to our late but very wet spring or maybe (in my case) to my apple cider trick, which once again led to lots of pollination of my two apple trees.

Whatever the reason, I’ve been picking and processing for several weeks. I tried giving away some of the apples and had a few takers, but this plastic bin was still out front on Sunday morning. So, I started peeling and prepping and ended up with:

12 pints of applesauce;

4 baked, then frozen apple crisps;

4 apple pie fillings, now frozen, to which I will add crusts at the appropriate time.

My trees still have a few apples on them that are too high for me to pick, even with a very clever apple-picking device that my neighbor gave to me. I will pick those off the ground as they fall and either eat or dispose of the fruit.

This year, I decided to edge some of my ornamental beds with parsley. I got the idea from The Wildlife-Friendly Garden.  The author suggested parsley be planted as a decoy plant to keep rabbits out of the vegetable garden. I haven’t see a lot of rabbits in the vegetable garden, so maybe it’s working. (I also haven’t seen a lot of chew marks on the parsley, either, so who knows?)

The result is, I have a LOT of parsley in my garden! I like parsley — it’s probably my favorite herb, but now I need to figure out what to do with it all.

I’ve been making pesto-like spreads from it, which I will freeze for addition to soups, sauces or vegetables during the winter. I also tried Margaret Roach’s approach of rolling the herbs into a log in a freezer bag. Then you can cut some of the herb roll off anytime you need it.

The other night, I decided to try a recipe from a new book I’m reviewing called Preserving by the Pint. This recipe involves chopping the parsley finely with garlic and salt and then setting it on a plate to dry. The idea is you will have a homemade spice mix to sprinkle on cooked dishes or in salad dressings. The garlic odor got a little strong in the house, so I had to set it out in the back porch. After 48 hours (the suggested drying time), it was still damp. I gave it a couple more days, but I think our August weather was too humid for outdoor drying. Time for Plan B.  I took the mix, added more parsley and some basil, a bit of olive oil and whirred it in the blender.

I froze several packets of the salty herb mix for using in soups and on vegetables. Last night, I broke off about a teaspoon of it and added it to some cooked broccoli. It was incredible and added just the right bit of herb and salt to the vegetables.

What’s your favorite way to preserve herbs?

I don’t do a lot of product reviews, but when Duluth Trading Co. contacted me about reviewing their heirloom gardening pants, I said sure! First, it’s a local company. (The company started in Duluth, though it’s now based in Belleville, Wis.) Second, I’m already a customer so I was pretty sure the quality would be there, and I wouldn’t have to tell them, no, I’m not going to review your product because it stinks.

I started buying Duluth Trading Co. clothing about five years ago. The first purchase was strictly because I loved the humor in the catalog, with the jokes about avoiding plumber’s butt by purchasing their long-tailed T-shirts and buying just the right briefcase to meet with the “suits.” But the clothes live up to the hype — they are truly work clothes but they also look good. My go-to garden tour outfit is a Duluth Trading Co. skort (the one I have is no longer sold, but this is close) worn with a tank top and this plaid shirt. It’s a look that’s relatively put together but allows me to bend over to look at a plant or crouch to take a photo without embarrassing myself or others. I also have two of their canvas totes, which are tough and incredibly useful for someone who’s often hauling a computer and lots of paper around town.

The heirloom gardening pants arrived a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been putting them through their paces, planting, mulching, weeding and mowing. They’ve been through the wash at least four times and show no sign of shrinkage, though the color has mellowed a bit. That doesn’t bother me and I like that the blue color I chose matches the overalls that Tomato Guy wears on my MSHS T-shirt.

The heirloom gardening pants have a number of features that I really like.  They’ve  got a small pocket on the side of the leg that’s just the right size for holding your cellphone, so it’s accessible but won’t fall out. I frequently take pictures of plants while I’m working and I like to be able to take calls without having to run into the house. There are two other pockets, plus an elastic strap on the side of the other leg that you can use to hold your gloves or a tool. The knees have a  pouch that you can insert a pad into that is lined with a water-resistant fabric. One rainy day, I worked outside for a couple of hours in the pants and my knees were dry as could be. If you are a hard-core gardener, that’s a great feature. The elastic at the ankles is very nice for wet weather or extra weedy conditions.

Finally, I like the way these pants fit. For some reason, many pants for women are built as if we were all straight — you know, like men. So I often find that pants that fit my rear are biggish in the waist and are constantly slipping down. These pants have an elastic waist with a cinch belt, so you can tighten up the waist as tight as needed.