Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative is Gearing Up for This Year's Projects

by Gary Salathe

The Louisiana iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), of which I am a member of the board of directors and a volunteer, managed to get 6,000 wild Iris giganticaerulea (a species of Louisiana iris) planted in refuges and nature preserves last year.  The hard work paid off, as shown in my last World of Irises Blog posting.  We're targeting getting at least 6,000 irises "rescued" and planted again for 2022.

The first step in accomplishing this goal is to locate irises that are threatened with destruction and dig them up.  That process has already begun with our completing three "rescues" so far this year that has brought in about 4,000 I. giganticaerulea irises to our iris holding area.

LICI volunteers are shown setting up the LICI iris 

holding area in July 2020. 

  

Since we are typically doing iris rescue events during the summer, while the irises are either about to go into or in their dormancy, we plant the irises into waterproof containers at our iris holding area to allow them to strengthen up by growing out new roots and leaves.  The irises are usually ready for planting into our iris restoration projects by late September.  The goal is to have all containers empty with the irises planted by January 2023.

Some of the irises from early spring are almost ready to move out to 

our projects, as shown in this photo taken on August 5th.

 

From summer 2020 until January of this year we have had to rely on local volunteers for our iris rescues and planting projects.  In Pre-COVID 19 days there was a flow of out-of-state college students coming in to help, often hosted by local not-for-profit organizations and motivated by various incentives, including earning public service hour credits.  During the last two years, it has required many more volunteer events of 6 to 8 people to accomplish what 15 to 20 college students could achieve in just one outing.

 

A 2021 iris rescue using local volunteers.

 

We are now back to pre-pandemic times, mainly using out-of-state university students as our volunteers. LICI helps local sponsor organizations by supplying them with work the volunteers can do for at least one day while they are in town. The college-age volunteers do the heavy work at our events. Our local volunteers either get down and dirty and work alongside these students if they are physically able or help in other ways to organize and support the events. Local LICI volunteers take charge of certain aspects of a project site over the long term. Others keep us in contact with various landowners, local governments, and other non-profits.  Some assist with social media and public relations.

 

 A 2022 iris rescue using out-of-state college student volunteers 

from Iowa State University.

 

The same Iowa State University volunteers at the LICI iris holding area 

 planting the irises they rescued the day before.

 

Our friends from the local non-profit Common Ground Relief were hosting the Iowa State University volunteers for a week of service activities in Southeast Louisiana doing marsh restoration projects.  

In June volunteers from the Students Shoulder to Shoulder organization worked with us to complete our second and third iris rescue of the season.  The volunteers were high school students from around the country.  They were in south Louisiana for a week of volunteering in coastal restoration projects through events held by their local host Common Ground Relief.

 Both of the June 2022 iris rescue events were held while the area was 

experiencing a heat wave with temperatures in the mid-90's.

 

 Josh Benitez (left), co-director of Common Ground Relief, is seen 

digging irises with two volunteers from the Students Shoulder to Shoulder 

organization during one of the June iris rescue events.

Because of the very wet weather our area has been experiencing, we likely will not be able to get out to do any more iris rescues until the middle of September.  One more event should get all of the containers full at the LICI iris holding area.

We are going to be doing some maintenance at the iris holding area over the next two weeks and will also be coming up with a plan for where the irises will be planted this fall and winter.  New sites have contacted us about having our irises planted there and we'd like to plant more irises at many of our ongoing projects.  We're hopeful the weather will cooperate during November to allow us to get some iris rescue projects done where we can dig one day and plant the irises in projects the next day.

We will also be working over the next few weeks on getting donations to fill out our budget for the year.  We welcome any size donation to help with the overhead expenses that we incur with maintaining our iris holding area and putting on volunteer events.  

We are an all-volunteer-run Louisiana-registered non-profit that aims to have a big impact at a small cost.  Clicking the button on our homepage will allow you to make a donation to us even if you do not have a PayPal account.  A credit card will work.  Any help that you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative website can be found here: https://www.licisaveirises.com/

Recent articles about our work can be found here: https://www.licisaveirises.com/news

Our Facebook page can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/licisaveirises

Our email address is: licisaveirises@gmail.com