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!!

The American Iris Society Announces the 2023 Mary Swords Debaillon Medal Winner

 'MELODY WILHOIT'

The DeBaillon Medal is restricted to Louisiana (LA) irises. It is named in honor of Mary Swords DeBaillon (1888-1940). Mary DeBaillon realized how varied Louisiana irises were and what lovely garden plants they were. Mary DeBaillon amassed the largest collection of Louisiana irises in the world. She was tireless in promoting these irises as good garden plants and in encouraging any who would listen to grow them. She gained considerable fame as a naturalist and native plant collector.

Previous awards winners can be found at https://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards.

Louisana Iris 'Melody Wilhoit'
Photo by Delane Langton

'Melody Wilhoit' (Hooker Nichols) Seedling LAB11. LA, 36" (91 cm), Early to late bloom. Standards dark yellow, ruffled; style arms dark yellow, slight green deep interior; falls same as standards, gold raised signal; huge flowers; saucer shaped. 'Ada Morgan' X 'Spanish Ballet'. Introduced by Redbud Lane Iris Garden in 2013.

The World of Irises blog will be posting classification medal winners as soon as the hybridizers are notified. The entire list of winners, including Award of Merit and Honorable Mention, will be published on the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia, and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.

Video by Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative on Year's Work

by Gary Salathe

In the world of the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) the new year starts as soon as the iris bloom is finished in late April. It ends with the iris bloom the following April. We've been very busy since last April and have now wrapped up our projects as we await the iris bloom.

 

We made this YouTube video to show our appreciation for the help we received that allowed our "iris year" to be so productive:  Click here to open video 

 

"Thank you!" goes out to everyone that helped us achieve our goals for the year.

 

I recently had a chance to sit down and try to estimate how many Louisiana irises have been rescued and replanted since I started this iris odyssey. It began with the Greater New Orleans Iris Society in 2017 and then was picked up by LICI in 2020. I'm pretty sure the number is in the neighborhood of 42,000 irises. 

 

Enjoy the video!

 

Info on what LICI does can be found here.

 

Details for most of the projects shown in the video can be found on the LICI "News" page of their website:  Click here.

 

The LICI Facebook page can be found Here.

 

 

Preparing Beardless Iris Beds at Dry Creek Garden

by Jeff Bennett

Overview of iris plantings at Dry Creek Garden 

Image (C) 2023 Maxar Technologies | Google Earth

Dry Creek Garden is located in Union City, California and is part of the East Bay Regional Park District. Iris plantings were established for the 2019 American Iris Society National Convention and are maintained by park gardener Jeff Bennett.

In 2021, I decided I wanted to improve our Louisiana iris beds at Dry Creek Garden so that they would hold more moisture and require less physical watering. At the same time, I wanted to try my hand at growing Japanese irises. California is known as a great location for growing bearded irises and of course Pacific Coast native irises and their hybrids, but not so much for the beardless classes (including Louisiana, Siberian, Japanese, and Pseudata hybrids). In this blog post, I will walk you through processes I used to prepare beds in this extremely drought-affected area of the country.

Before preparing beds for new irises, be sure to orders are placed well ahead of planting time to have the greatest choice of varieties. I do this in January and February, when the growers and hybridizers usually update availability and open up their websites for ordering. The irises you order won’t be ship until September, so you have plenty of time to plan and prepare the beds. 

For the new Louisiana iris bed, I dug 10 to 12-inches deep and created a  trench 5 x 30 feet - with the occasional help of Mount Diablo Iris Society or local community volunteers and sometimes other park staff. (Sorry, to readers in every other country in the world. I never quite learned the metric system.) We mounded up all the clay-like, native soil in the pathway next to the bed so it could be returned to the trench later. 

Excavated trench with a mound of removed soil and concrete edging piled to right.
All photos by Jeff Bennett

Next, we lined this trench with weed block to prevent bindweed from coming through very easily. On top of the weed block, we added a layer of 6-mil plastic (is mil metric?). The plastic will prevent the water in the bed from soaking all the way through to China. Once the bed was lined with plastic, we started refilling it with soil in the adjacent mound. We added about four inches of straight compost and then top this with about four inches of the native clay, trying to mix this together as we went. This was followed with another two to three inches of compost and another two to three inches of soil, again mixing it up. Finally, we added a final layer of two to three inches of compost on top. To finish the edges, we used recycled cement from my home patio (which had been removed and hauled here the year before). The cement edging helped conceal plastic from view and gave the bed a finished appearance. Since this area had already housed bearded irises before, I returned the same drip lines onto the top of the bed. The half-inch drip lines have emitters every foot and we planted a Louisiana iris every three feet on each side of the bed using the emitters as a guide. 

Completed and planted Louisiana iris bed.

When I receive any iris orders, I always pot up rhizomes to give them a good start (see my post "Get That Order Planted" from last summer). The bed was completed in January 2022 and potted Louisianas were transplanted from their pots directly into the new bed then. Since they like water and we weren't getting ANY rain, I used a hose to give the bed its first flood soak to settle them in. Now it was their turn to do their work!

Louisiana irises thriving in new bed.

After planting the Louisianas into the new ground bed—alphabetically by name of course—I turned my attention to getting the Japanese irises transplanted into their new water-holding containers. Unlike Louisiana irises, Japanese irises CANNOT dry out. Their roots must remain moist at all times. For them, I decided to use large metal water troughs, typically used for livestock. I got the watering troughs at a local hardware store, but they can also be purchased from farm supply stores. Livestock-watering troughs are galvanized metal and have no drain holes anywhere.

New livestock-watering troughs for Japanese irises.

I first put about three inches of wood chips on the bottom to make a water reservoir below the soil. I then bought a rhododendron soil mixture to provide the acidic pH Japanese irises prefer. I layered this soil with compost to the top of the tubs, about three inches each of rhododendron mix and compost, mixing these together while filling the troughs. Japanese irises like their roots to be wet but the rhizomes need to be above the water table to grow well. To create this effect, I measured down from the top of the tubs five inches and drilled ¼-inch holes in the metal to allow excess water from rain or irrigation to escape. I drilled eight holes in each container, two on each side of the oval-ended tubs. They were now ready to plant. I have nine tubs -  seven for Japanese, one for Pseudatas/Species-X, and the last one for Siberians. For a quicker visual effect, in each tub, I planted seven to eight varieties. Since the irises were growing in pots, I just transplanted them alphabetically to the tubs (rootball and all). It was now February 16, 2022.

Filling livestock troughs with layers of rhododendron soil and compost.

Newly planted beardless irises in livestock troughs.

Everything started growing immediately as it was the season to do so. By early April, the Louisianas were showing good growth and the first flower opened on April 27, less than 100 days after the plant was transplanted into the ground.

Louisiana iris 'Eyes Wide Open' (Heather Pryor, 2016) blooming approximately

100 days after transplanting into the new trenched bed.

The Japanese irises were looking great by early May and the first Japanese bloomed on May 19, just in time for our scheduled Japanese iris judges' training on May 20. 

Japanese iris 'Devi Banri' (Toyokazu Ichie 1989) blooming in May 2022 after being transplanted

into livestock troughs in February.

None of the Siberians bloomed during their first year in the tub, but they put on lots of increase and we are looking forward to them blooming this year. I reiterate that we are growing them the same way as the Japanese irises with wettish roots and rhizomes above a water reservoir. 

This year we created another bed like the Louisiana bed, for the Japanese irises. These will be planted very soon, now that the California storms have passed and we can dig in the soil again. I am adding peat moss to this bed for acidity along with all the compost. We're hoping to grow Japanese irises successfully in our specially-prepared ground beds in this otherwise Mediterranean climate (no natural summer rainfall)!

We had also begun preparing a Japanese iris bed in the same fashion in the heart of the garden down near the creek last fall. Just as we were about to add peat moss to this bed before planting, the atmospheric river of storms hit California starting on December 31, 2022. THANKFULLY, we had not planted the bed yet by transplanting the Japanese irises from their pots into the ground as this area ended up getting flooded and under three feet of water, devastating this part of the garden. Flooding deposited 20-24 inches of silt there and strong winds toppled six mature trees nearby. We are now cleaning up the garden from this storm. In about six months, we hope to re-open the damaged area to the public (~Fall 2023). The damage was bad! Thankfully, the iris area on the hill was not harmed by the flooding. HORRAY!

A Unique Iris Planting in New Orleans, Louisiana

by Patrick O'Connor 

Members of the Greater New Orleans Iris Society have been hard at work curating a unique iris planting in New Orleans City Park. The planting is three-quarters of an acre and provides the space and opportunity for volunteers to maintain an extensive collection of species and hybrid Louisiana irises. 

We recently created an eight-minute video to support recruitment and membership efforts. It highlights the range of irises and club activities.

Video Link

For more information about Louisiana Irises and the Greater New Orleans Iris Society, please visit our website: http://www.louisianairisgnois.com

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