Chicken Trees vs Louisiana Irises (The irises won!)

 By Gary Salathe

My non-profit, the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), has a Louisiana iris restoration project underway with our partners, the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park, at the boardwalk in Palmetto Island State Park near Abbeville, Louisiana. One of the project's goals is to increase the number of Louisiana species Iris nelsonii (common name Abbeville Red iris) growing in the swamp at the boardwalk. One critical job that needed to be accomplished was to remove the Chinese tallow invasive tree species from the boardwalk swamp where the irises would be planted.

This photo was taken at the boardwalk swamp this past April. We hope to have 2,000 I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris blooming at the park's boardwalk for the 2025 Bayou Teche Native Louisiana Iris Festival. The second day of the festival will be held at Palmetto Island State Park to celebrate the I. nelsonii Louisiana iris.

The Chinese tallow is a drought-tolerant tree native to China and Japan. It was first introduced in South Carolina during the 1700s as an ornamental tree and then for making soap from seed oils. It can be found from eastern North Carolina southward to Florida. From Florida, it spread westerly through Louisiana and Arkansas into Texas.

This August 2023 photo was taken from the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk in the swamp where the irises will be planted this fall. As seen in the photo, all trees that are 30' tall or smaller are invasive Chinese tallow trees.

Chinese tallow trees can be identified by broad, waxy-green leaves, often with an extended tip or "tail." New growth briefly appears reddish.

In the early 1900s, it was used as an ornamental tree in Louisiana because most of Louisiana's native trees do not produce fall-colored leaves. The Chinese tallow tree does.

The Chinese tallow tree can be easily spotted in Louisiana forests when its leaves change color in late fall. Once this happens, the green color starts to fade from the leaves, and then reds, oranges, and yellows become visible. The leaves from most of Louisiana's native hardwood trees turn brown in color.

The south/central part of Louisiana, where Palmetto Island State Park is located, is part of Louisiana's Acadiana region, also known as Cajun country. In this region, the Chinese tallow tree is known as the "Chicken tree."

The Chicken trees needed to be removed from the park's boardwalk swamp before the two iris plantings planned for later this year. This was because the Chicken trees would compete with the irises, just as they were competing with the native Bald Cypress in the boardwalk swamp for moisture and nutrients in the soil. Also, trying to remove the Chicken trees after the irises were planted would risk volunteers trampling the irises. A decision was made by LICI and the park manager to set September 9, 2023 as the day to remove the Chicken trees.

I'm shown giving the opening remarks at the Chicken tree removal event in Palmetto Island State Park. I spoke on the history of the Abbeville Red iris and its discovery.   I also explained why the display of these irises at the park's boardwalk is so important to so many people, literally from around the world. It is a place to see this rare species of Louisiana iris in bloom. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

The September 9th event was co-hosted by Palmetto Island State Park and the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), with the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. sponsoring the event by supplying snacks, drinks, and sandwiches. In the days leading up to September 9th, it became a community-wide event with volunteers signing up from a Scout Troop in Lafayette, Abbeville Rotary Club, Abbeville Garden Club, Vermilion ARCH 4-H club - including some of the parents, Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc., volunteers from people staying at the park, and LICI's volunteers. Approximately 50 volunteers showed up for the event.

The swamp was dry due to the extreme drought the area has been experiencing. Dry conditions made it easier for the volunteers to get around and do the work. 

 

 Volunteers begin work at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp at the September 9 Chicken tree removal event. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

The park manager, Andrea Jones, was very supportive of the effort. She lined up many of the volunteers, allowed her staff to help deliver, set up, and take down everything needed for the event at the boardwalk base station, and allowed the group to use the nearby meeting room building and its porch.

 

 Two volunteers are shown with loopers and the flagging used to mark each Chicken tree.

Small red flags were set next to each Chicken tree so the volunteers would not need to determine which trees in the swamp needed to be cut down. Then, volunteers with either tree limb loopers or a chainsaw would cut the trees down. The cut trees were hauled to the swamp's edge and left to rot among the palmettos. A few volunteers then squirt each tree stump with an herbicide to kill the roots. They would collect each red flag as they were finished. Most trees ranged in size from twenty feet tall or less with a 1" to 1 1/2" diameter trunk.

Stewart Broussard, president of the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc., is seen here working with the other volunteers to clear out Chicken trees during the event.

As a way to add a festive feeling to the event, a local aspiring singer/songwriter, Brody Lemaire, along with his singer and percussionist sister, Zoey Lemaire, offered to donate their time to come out and play for the other volunteers as they worked. Their playing and singing were a wonderful background for the groups working out in the swamp.

Volunteers at work removing Chicken trees during the September 9 event.

At the end of the event, I told the group, "I have no idea how many Chicken trees were pulled up or cut down, but it was a lot! When the Abbeville Red irises we will be planting this winter bloom throughout the swamp at the boardwalk next spring, everyone will have a clear view of the show, thanks to the work y'all did here today."

This is the final "Goodbye" group photo of most volunteers and park staff participating in the Chinese tallow tree removal volunteer event at Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp on September 9, 2023. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

One last video to show the iris spirit of the volunteers!!

First Annual Abbeville Swamp Iris Seed Collection Project

By Gary Salathe

My non-profit, the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), has a Louisiana iris restoration project underway with our partners, the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park, at the boardwalk in Palmetto Island State Park near Abbeville, Louisiana. One of the project's goals is to increase the number of Louisiana species Iris nelsonii (common name Abbeville Red iris) growing in the swamp at the boardwalk. Another goal is that after using the bloom to verify plants as I. nelsonii, they could be thinned out at some point in the future and returned to the nearby Abbeville Swamp. Since this swamp is the only place in the world where this Louisiana iris grows naturally, any I. nelsonii iris originated from there and was collected at some point.

 Kent Benton, Forest Benton, and myself (left to right) in a clump of I. nelsonii on April 5th in the Abbeville Swamp.    Photo by Henry Cancienne

An Abbeville Swamp landowner invited a small group of LICI volunteers to visit it during early April 2023 to see the irises during bloom. Although we were excited by the irises we found, it was also disappointing to find no irises growing in huge areas of the swamp. The exact reason is unknown. What it is known that collectors have aggressively removed irises in this swamp since their discovery in the late 1930s through the late 1990s, sometimes without the landowners' permission.

This past June, Louisiana iris enthusiast, iris grower, and LICI volunteer Kent Benton donated hundreds of I. nelsonii iris seedlings for the Palmetto Island State Park iris restoration project. They are currently growing at LICI's New Orleans iris holding area. Kent donated seeds his nursery created through a captured breeding process which utilized I. nelsonii iris pollen he collected at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk in 2021 with the permission of the park manager.

Kent's donated irises will be planted at the park’s boardwalk this fall, but many will not be mature enough to bloom next spring.  Efforts are underway to solicit donations of I. nelsonii irises from iris collectors to increase the number of blooming irises at the boardwalk in April.

LICI's volunteer, Kent Benton, is seen collecting pollen from a few of the I. nelsonii irises blooming at the Palmetto Island State Park on March 23, 2023, during a visit to the park. He received permission from the then-manager of the park to collect pollen to use for producing more I. nelsonii irises to be planted at the boardwalk in 2024.

In April 2023, Kent collected more pollen from the irises at the boardwalk during the bloom season. Unfortunately, a late frost destroyed many of the flowers at his nursery soon after they were pollinated. We were hopeful that created seeds could be planted and grown out at the boardwalk in the fall of 2024 and they would all bloom in April 2025. Alas, mother nature had other plans.

Next, we proposed collecting seed pods from the actual I. nelsoniii irises growing in the Abbeville Swamp when they ripen in July to stay on track with having more irises to plant in the fall of 2024 at the park's boardwalk. We think that almost all of these seeds would be wasted if they stayed in the swamp since the percentage of Louisiana iris seeds germinating, growing, and surviving into mature plants in the wild is extremely low, especially of the irises growing in standing water.

The plan is for the irises from these collected seeds to grow in their natural environment in the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp, where the public can enjoy them while they bloom. But more importantly, after they are confirmed to be true I. nelsonii irises, they will be moved back into the Abbeville Swamp into areas where no irises are growing. In 2 1/2 years, we can return to the Abbeville Swamp with a much higher percentage of plants produced from collected seed than if seeds germinated independently in the swamp. 

The photo on the left shows the 36" tall I. nelsonii irises blooming in one of the more remote areas the LICI volunteers found irises on their April tour of the Abbeville Swamp. The same area is shown on the right in July after 4 1/2 months of weed and swamp plant growth. The dormant irises and their ripe seed pods were covered by 48" tall weeds and brush.

After receiving the landowner's permission, I did an iris seed pod collection expedition to the Abbeville Swamp on July 12, 2023. Unfortunately, it coincided with an extreme heat wave hitting the area. I collected sixty seed pods after four hours of tiring and dirty work in the scorching heat that involved whacking through brush and weeds to get to the irises and their seed pods.

Some seed pods collected on July 12th from the I. nelsonii irises in the Abbeville Swamp.

The next morning, Thursday July 13, 2023, during a presentation on germinating iris seeds I gave to members of the Acadiana Native Plant Project, some seed pods were opened, and the seeds were planted into one-gallon pots. I taught the attendees Kent Benton's method of germinating seeds in which he gets between a 70% and 90% success rate. The 455 seeds will be germinated and monitored by the group at their native plant nursery in Arnaudville, Louisiana.

Photo: Members of the Acadiana Native Plant Project are seen on July 13th planting seeds after opening the seed pods collected the day before at the Abbeville Swamp.

Later that same day, near Livingston, Louisiana, I gave Kent some mature pods to germinate the seeds. The next day he reported planting 465 seeds from the seed pods into pots. 

Kent Benton on July 14th after planting the seeds he was given from the Abbeville Swamp into containers.

 

On Friday, July 14th, the rest of the seed pods were opened, and 474 seeds were planted into one-gallon pots by staff and interns of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) nursery in Thibodaux, Louisiana. They will germinate the seeds as a joint project with Nicholls Farm. The farm is managed by the head of the Biology Department at Nicholls State University.

The Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) nursery at Nicholls University in Thibodaux, Louisiana

 

 

 

 

The groups agreed to help germinate the seeds when LICI determined that the irrigation system used at its iris-holding area for their mature irises would put too much water onto them.

We are excited that a thousand or more of the very rare I. nelsonii plants will come from the 1,400 seeds planted into pots this week! I am very grateful for our friends and partners in this seed-germination project: Acadiana Native Plant Project, Kent Benton, and the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program in conjunction with Nicholls State University.

Tammy, an intern with BTNEP, is seen just before she covers with soil the 474 iris seeds she helped to plant into pots at the BTNEP nursery.

 

 

All seedlings that come from our combined efforts will be given back to LICI in about five months to grow out at our iris-holding area in New Orleans. They will be ready for planting at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk during the fall of 2024.

I'm hopeful that with more time available to plan a visit back to the Abbeville Swamp during next spring’s bloom, and with the permission of the landowner, of course, we may be able to significantly increase the number of seeds that we can collect next summer to farm out for germinating to boost the number of seedlings available for growing out even further.

The hoped-for outcome of all of this work by all of the groups that are part of this project is to have a couple of thousand I. nelsonii irises blooming at the Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk by the spring of 2025.

A group of civic leaders in New Iberia, Louisana, have begun organizing the inaugural Bayou Teche Native Louisiana Iris Festival for March 28th through the 30th in 2025. The festival will be based in New Iberia, but the last day of activities will take place in Palmetto Island State Park at the boardwalk to celebrate the restoration of the I. nelsonii planting there. The educational type festival will also have talks open to the public about this rare iris and the need to preserve its native habitat.

Alison Miller during her meeting with LICI at the Abbeville Cultural & Historical Museum & Art Gallery on Wednesday, July 12, 2023 in Abbeville, Louisiana.

Although awareness of the Abbeville Red irises at the Palmetto Island State Park will be elevated by the iris festival in 2025, the Vermilion Parish Tourist Commission has already extensively promoted the iris bloom at the park each spring. During a July meeting with the Executive Director of the Tourist Commission, Alison Miller, I committed LICI to helping the tourist commission get the word out about the iris restoration project at the park and to increase awareness of the Abbeville Red irises while they bloom next spring. She also said the tourist commission would help with marketing the inaugural Bayou Teche Native Louisiana Iris Festival. She said they regularly get people from all over the country come into the visitor's center and ask about the Abbeville red irises, especially during the iris bloom each spring.

I. nelsonii irises blooming at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk on April 5, 2023

Starting next spring, and each year, as all of the I. nelsonii flowers are blooming at the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk, iris experts will be asked to walk through the swamp to verify that each iris is, in fact, an I. nelsonii specimen. After the 2025 iris festival, the process will begin of returning many of the irises back to the Abbeville Swamp to be replaced at the boardwalk with a new crop of iris seedlings created using the prior year's seeds collected from the Abbeville Swamp. My hope is that the boardwalk planting at the park will become a clearing house for irises grown from seeds collected from the Abbeville Swamp to be confirmed while they bloom so they can head back into the swamp as full-size plants.

The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park have created a new page on their website. The page not only has links to Facebook postings and articles about their partnership with LICI and what the goals are for the project, but it also has a donate button for a fund they have set up so everyone can help to maintain, enhance and expand, the Abbeville Red iris exhibit at the boardwalk by donating. Here's a link to the page: https://friendsofpalmetto.org/partnering-with-lici The new donate button is at the bottom of the page, and any help will be greatly appreciated.

The LICI Facebook page can be found here.

You can email me at: licisaveirises@gmail.com

Working Irises

By Gary Salathe

We all focus on the beauty of native Louisiana irises when we see them blooming in the wild. We sometimes forget that these irises provide a service to the habitat in which they grow; they consume huge amounts of overabundant nutrients found within the swamp water, humus soil, and muck that comes from decaying matter. The ability of the irises to accomplish this is the reason that my non-profit, the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), was invited to participate in an important project being done by Nicholls State University. Put simply, the goal of the project is to put the irises to work!

Here is the tale of just how we are going to do this:

Each summer along portions of the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico, the oxygen levels in the water drop below 2 parts per million, creating a situation known as hypoxia. The result is a “dead zone” – the low-oxygen levels kill bottom-living organisms and fish and shrimp will avoid the area. The creation of the dead zone is linked to the flow of two key nutrients down the Mississippi River, nitrogen and phosphorus. Snow melt and springtime rainfall transport these nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico from farms, residential septic tanks, and sewage treatment plants within the river's watershed.

 

   The map above is from a NOLA.com article.

The low density of freshwater from the Mississippi River allows it to form a layer over the higher density saltwater Gulf water just off Louisiana's coast. This nutrient-rich freshwater increases algae populations and forms a harmful algal bloom. When the algae bloom is over, this organism dies and sinks to the bottom of the Gulf, where it decomposes, using up oxygen. Low-oxygen conditions generally last until tropical storms or other weather events in late summer and early fall disrupt the layer of fresh water, mixing air from the surface into the saltwater on the bottom.

Obviously, for a state whose coastal areas depend on commercial and recreational fishing, this is a huge problem. It is also becoming a national embarrassment that as ecological concerns in much smaller habitats get plenty of media attention, very few people in the areas upstream in the Mississippi River watershed, where much of the nutrients come from, are even aware of this problem. It’s a problem, all right. Each summer, it often covers an area in the Gulf of Mexico the size of the state of Connecticut.                         

   The graphic above is from a NOLA.com article.

Much work has been done, and is being done, to understand the Gulf of Mexico's annual dead zone. The Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998 (HABHRCA 1998, reauthorized in 2004, 2014, and 2019) reaffirmed and expanded NOAA's mandate to advance scientific understanding of hypoxia, and support scientists' ability to detect, monitor, predict, and mitigate its occurrences. However, not much has been done in attempting to stop the source of the problem outside of enforcing EPA pollution regulations that typically are not focused on nutrients.

Ducks Unlimited saw an opportunity to offer one solution to the problem of hypoxia and simultaneously solve another problem, how to increase the amount of duck habitat in south Louisiana. They have funded a number of demonstration projects in an attempt to show that creating wetlands near the source of the water runoff can significantly reduce the amount of nutrients entering the watershed. By planting native marsh plants within the wetlands and having the nutrient-laden water flow through, the plants will significantly reduce the amount of nutrients in the water that comes out the other end. This will help solve the first problem. It is thought that the supercharged wetlands full of these plants and nutrients will become the perfect duck habitat, helping to solve the second problem.

Nicholls State University is located in the small rural Louisiana town of Thibodaux, Louisiana, and has a 277-acre farm. The farm is an integral part of the university’s plans to become the center for coastal restoration research in Louisiana. In recent years, Nicholls Biology Department has produced over 30,000 black mangroves at the Nicholls Farm, which were planted along coastal areas. A Nicholls Farm master plan lays out plans for additional land, classroom space, and areas to test coastal restoration projects. Ducks Unlimited approached Nicholls State about creating a wetlands on their farm as one of the first of their nutrient-reducing projects. Nicholls State signed on to the project.

 

 

Photo: The wetlands project site at Nicholls Farm is located on the map labeled "Bird Sanctuary" and the "Large Farm Plots" to its right.

 

The wetland project covers 21 acres of the Nicholls Farm. The plan is to pump water from Bayou Folse into the wetland, let the marsh plants remove the nutrients, and then return the clean water back to the bayou. The bayou is really just a drainage canal at that upstream location. Water drains into the bayou from nearby residential areas - many using individual septic tanks for sewerage treatment, some farmland and sugar cane fields (heavy fertilizer users), and some urban run-off from the town. The Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Entergy, and Lowland Construction all assisted with the development and implementation of the project.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative was invited to participate as a partner in the project by the head of Nicholls State University Biology Department and leader of the wetlands project, Quinton Fontenot. Our job is to organize iris rescues and then organize volunteers to plant the irises into the wetlands project. The job of the irises is to remove the nutrients from the water coming into the project from Bayou Folse. In other words, this is an iris restoration with a purpose other than just growing irises. It's a working iris project! We, too, signed on.

Photo: The ability of Louisiana irises to remove nutrients from water and soil are well known. This photo is from a LICI iris rescue in 2020 on Bayou Road in St. Bernard Parish, La. The volunteers showed up with shovels, ready to dig up the irises, only to discover that the irises were all floating on the water's surface. They were growing hydroponically because nearby homes' individual home sewerage treatment plants had their outflows in the bayou, which is actually a large ditch at that location. The photo shows an iris with its huge root system just plucked from the water.

Of course, this wetlands project is also offering us a wonderful opportunity to find a home for huge numbers of rescued I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris from our iris rescue program. What better home for them than in the center of a university's farm that is dedicated to Louisiana coastal conservation and habitat restoration?  The farm already produces other native plants, such as marsh grasses, that are used to create seed stock for USDA-approved nurseries to grow out to use in restoration projects. Our irises will just be added into the mix. (A topic for a future blog posting will be the plan to use the Nicholls Farm and I. giganticaerulea species to obtain for the USDA's approval for irises grown by their approved nurseries to be used in future marsh restoration projects.)

We have agreed that in future years the irises we plant into the project can be thinned out for other restoration projects. It is likely they will become a source of irises for restoration projects all across south Louisiana for years to come.

Photo: Construction of the Nicholls Farm wetlands project was nearing completion when this photo was taken in March of 2023. One of two water control structures is shown in the photo.  The photo also shows the vast amount of shoreline available to plant irises.

One of the really interesting things about this project is that the water level of the wetlands can be completely controlled. There are two out-flow water control structures that lower the water level in 4-inch increments by removing metal panels, which are each 4" tall. You can completely drain the wetlands by removing all of the panels. A high-capacity pump installed next to Bayou Folse can raise the water level 4 inches in a little less than one day.

Photo: The pump next to Bayou Folse is shown running at full capacity the day after our iris plantings were completed in early June.

After the wetland was completely filled with water for the first time, a couple of LICI volunteers and myself walked the areas that were approved by Quinton for us to plant irises in the project. We flagged off areas that were holding between 3" and 6" of water. The grasses that had been growing in these areas were used to being on high and dry land, so they had begun to die off.

Photo: Two LICI volunteers are shown setting out flags in areas where the water depth was between 3" and 6" so that we could locate the sites after the water level was lowered for the iris plantings. 

Preparations for the iris plantings began with iris rescues to collect the irises we would be planting into the project. Our friends at the non-profit Common Ground Relief had an eighth-grade school group from St. Louis, Missouri for a week of service activities in late April. One of their activities had to be canceled, so they contacted me to see if we had something they could do with irises. Well, they ended up rescuing over 2,800 irises from the site west of New Orleans where we have been working to remove them.

Photo: Some of the twenty students from The College School in St. Louis, MO are seen on an iris rescue organized by Common Ground Relief to help us get irises for planting at the Nicholls State Farm wetlands project.

I organized iris rescues during May to add to the number of irises we would have available to plant. Our friends at Limitless Vistas/ Gulf Corps volunteered to do the job. During four iris rescues another 3,000 irises were collected. By including some irises from the LICI iris holding area, we likely had over 6,000 irises available by the time we were ready to begin planting at the Nicholls Farm in late May.

Photo: During early May, small groups of Limitless Vistas/Gulf Corps job training program helped out by doing four iris rescues to gather irises for the Nicholls Farm project.

The final step before we could begin planting irises was to cut the grass within the flagged areas once the water level was lowered in the wetlands project for the planting events. Mike Glaspell, a LICI volunteer from our Lockport, La. boardwalk planting, which is located about 30 miles away, agreed to come out and help prep the site.

Photo: LICI's volunteer, Mike Glaspell, did yeoman work cutting the grass with his brush-blade weed-eater to prep each planting site on Mary 22nd for the next day's iris planting event. 

 

The first volunteer iris planting event was planned for Tuesday, May 23rd. Even though we were expecting up to 50 volunteers we were pretty sure they would not be able to plant all of the irises.  Because it was going to take some time to lower the water level of the wetlands we wanted to try and get all of the irises we wanted planted in the ground within a few days of each other. A second volunteer event was scheduled for Friday, May 26th to accomplish that.

It took two trips from New Orleans to get all of the irises to the site. 

The morning of Tuesday, May 23rd was clear, very warm, with very little breeze and high humidity. Mike, myself, and other volunteers from Lockport, La., including some Louisiana Master Gardeners, arrived early to help set the irises out, put up four canopies, and set up tables, chairs, and other equipment. They did a great job of getting the irises out of their containers to spread out across the planting area so no time was wasted by the planting volunteers carrying irises to and fro. By the time the first planting volunteers arrived, we were already tired, hot, and our clothes were soaked from sweat.

Photo: LICI's volunteers are shown setting the irises out around the planting sites before the planting volunteers arrived on the morning of Tuesday, May 23rd.

Right on time, just after 9 AM, thirty-five volunteers from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) in addition to some of the Nicholls State University faculty, staff, and students arrived to start work planting the irises. Another canopy was raised up on the far end of the planting area and for almost 2 1/2 hours without much of a break the group worked hard planting irises.

 LICI's volunteer photographer, Henry Cancienne, was there to document the whole thing.

 

 

Photo: In one of the most impressive displays of volunteer power that I have experienced so far in my iris restoration hobby, they planted about 2,000 irises in the first 1 1/2 hours of the event.

 

 

A film crew from Ducks Unlimited arrived to shoot scenes for a documentary they are doing about the project.

Video: About midway through the event a snowball truck pulled into the remote site where the volunteers were working! It had been hired by the LOOP leadership to give all of the volunteers a cool break on a hot day.

Just after noon it all ended and a total of 3,000 irises had been planted. All of the irises we had set out and prepositioned were planted. But there were still plenty of irises that were stored in containers flooded with the wetland's water that we had not set out.

We all headed to the front of the farm to a building used for classes. Then a pizza delivery van showed up and delivered a tall stack of pizza boxes full of pizzas for the group!

Photo: Volunteers from the Tuesday, May 23rd iris planting pose for the final goodby photo.

So far, so good. The days passed quickly and it seemed like in no time the second volunteer iris planting event was ready to go on Friday, May 26th. This time the volunteers were a group of college students from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania,  Limitless Vistas/Gulf Corps workers and our own LICI volunteers.

Common Ground Relief had been hosting the Bucknell group while they were in New Orleans taking a course on the city’s history for three weeks. Our event was just one service activity that the group did with Common Ground Relief while they were in town.

The Limitless Vistas/Gulf Corps crew that had completed four iris rescues for the wetlands project wanted to see where the irises were being planted and to help with the planting, so they could go full circle from rescuing to planting.

Photo: The volunteers for the second iris planting at the Nicholls State wetlands project get ready to start work on Friday, May 26th.

Thankfully, there was a stiff breeze blowing all morning, so the work was more pleasant than on Tuesday. The group worked hard and planted about 1,800 irises.

Photo: Volunteers from the Friday, May 26th iris planting pose for the final goodby photo.

 

 Quinton went back to the planting site that evening and dropped one 4" panel down on both water control structures and turned the pump on. By the end of the next day the water level had risen to the top of the panel, which got some water around most of the irises that had been planted that week.

I went back to the wetlands two days after the last planting to pick up about 1,200 irises we had left over because there was not enough time to plant them. The volunteers for both events were hot and worn out anyway by the end of the events, so these irises likely would not have been planted even if there was more time available. I planted 200 irises while I was there.

I texted Quinton and told him if we could get the water level up 1" all of the irises would either have some water around them or at least be in moist ground. He was happy to turn on the pump that evening. The water level rose the 1" by the following morning, when he turned the pump off again.

I went back to the wetlands project near the end of last week to check on the water level because we didn't want to raise it back up fully until the irises had put out some new leaf growth to make sure they wouldn't be totally submerged. I gave the OK for the wetlands pump to be turned on to fill it all of the way back up after seeing that almost all of the irises had perked up or put out new leaf growth. I also planted 100 more irises, which brought our grand total for the planting to 5,100 irises!

Photo: One of the water control structures can be seen in the photo. Irises with water around most of them can also be seen in the photo's foreground. This photo was taken after the water had been risen by the height of one panel, plus 1" three days after the planting.

Photo: This is the map we are working on with Quinton for the iris plantings we just completed and the iris plantings we hope to complete by the end of the year.  

Our goal is to get in between 12,000 and 15,000 irises this year.

Quinton told the volunteers that the university has plans to build a walking path between this wetlands project and another one they are just getting started on. Also in the plan, subject to getting funding, would be to build a pavilion that overlooks the wetlands project. The site of that pavilion will be near to the area we have planted the irises. He also told the volunteers that the university will hold some type of open house during next spring's iris bloom so they could all come, along with others, to view the results of their work.

I told my volunteers that seeing 15,000 I. giganticaerlea irises all blooming at one time will likely be a once in a lifetime event for each of us. However, I also pointed out that these 15,000 irises will likely double in number during the next year through off-shoot growth. If we plant 15,000 more in 2024 that would mean there could be 45,000 irises blooming all at once during the 2025 spring bloom in the wetlands project. "Now, this would be a historic event!" I told them.

The LICI Facebook page can be found here

You can email me at: licisaveirises@gmail.com

Although LICI “is a bare-bones deal”, as I like to say, I'm quick to add that we can always use donations to our cause. We have a “Donate” button at the top of our website home page here.