by Ron Killingsworth
The joint American Iris Society (AIS) and Society for Louisiana Irises (SLI) convention in New Orleans was a smashing success. On Friday we toured the
Baton Rouge Burden Museum and Gardens in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about an hour drive north of New Orleans, LA.
Our tour buses arrived at the Baton Rouge Burden Museum and
Gardens early Friday morning. Four buses
full of iris lovers crowded into the registration/gift show area and were
treated to a short video on the history of the museum and gardens. Next to the gift shop was a pen with two
“Texas Longhorn” cows. I’ve seen a lot
of Texas longhorns before but these two had extra long horns!
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| Texas "Longhorn" steer |
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| Texas "Longhorn" |
While most people chose to walk around in the gardens and to
tour the historical buildings scattered around, a group of us “able to walk
quite a distance” were led by Patrick O’Connor on a mile or so walk to the
Black Swamp boardwalk entrance. There is
a small pond, located at the entrance of the boardwalk through the swamp. We did lots of “picture taking” there as
there were a few Louisiana irises growing in the edge of the pond.
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| Iris lovers walking toward the Black Swamp tour entrance |
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| Small pond at entrance to Black Swamp |
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| Louisiana irises grown in small pond |
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| Louisiana irises growing at back of pond with beehives in left background |
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| Patrick O'Connor prepares to lead us into the swamp! |
We walked on to the entrance of the boardwalk
and walked along the extensive walkway through the “swamp”.
The swamp is a rain-fed swamp and is believed
to have originally been a Mississippi flood fed swamp.
The swamp is no longer fed by flood waters
since the building of the many levees in the area. Although the swamp is called
the “Black Swamp”, the water was not that dark, instead, sort of brown from the
tannins from the
Black Tupelo tree.
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| On the boarwalk in the pond with Black Tupelo trees in forground |
I understand that until recently there were no Louisiana
irises to be found in this swamp, but thanks to the efforts of the Greater New
Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) and especially Benny Trahan, many rhizomes of
three species of Louisiana irises were planted in the swamp in 2015. There were not a lot of blooming irises to be
seen but when a clump was found, everyone crowded around for pictures.
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iris.giganticaerulea growing near boardwalk
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One
clump of blue i.giganticaerulea received
a lot of admiration and a clump of i.nelsonii
about 30 feet out into the swamp was really beautiful, especially if you
had a telephoto lens on your camera.
Another clump of white i.giganticaerulea
was very close to the boardwalk.
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iris.nelsonii growing in Black Swamp
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iris.giganticaerulea (white) growing in swampy waters
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| Louisiana irises growing near boardwalk |
No “critters” were noted during the walk and only one snake
was found, up in a tree, but either the snake was dead or fast asleep. It was a very pleasant walk along the
boardwalk and the two varieties of tupelo trees were evident everywhere you
looked. We have tupelo trees on Caddo
Lake in NW Louisiana and I know they produce a fruit much loved by squirrels.
We also saw one Magnolia tree just starting to bloom.
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| Walking along the boardwalk deep in the "Black Swamp"! |
While we did not see a vast amount of irises, the ones we
saw were beautiful in their native habitat.
Hopefully more irises can be planted here in years to come. If you visit the museum, you can park closer
to the swamp entrance and save the walk.
