US Park Service Asks LICI to Participate in a Plant Assesment Study at the Chalmette Battlefield

January 12, 2022 Chalmette, La.

The US Park Service has asked the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) to participate in a park-wide vegetative assessment study they are doing at the Chalmette Battlefield, which is part of the National Park System. A count and location of the Louisiana irises at the battlefield is needed to complete the assessment. They thought that our help would speed up the study and make if more accurate since LICI's volunteers may be able to spot iris plants among the other vegetation better than others.

LICI volunteer, Kristy Wallisch, has volunteered to be the lead "investigator" for LICI's US Park Service's Chalmette Battlefied iris restoration project. She will be LICI's representative on the park's battlefield-wide vegetative assessment. The purpose of the assessment is to document all of the different types of plants growing within the park. Kristy has agreed to take on the job of counting the irises and documenting their location within the battlefield. She has also written LICI's 2021 annual report of their activities and observations at the park as part of LICI's permit to have a project there.

One small area is shown of the Louisiana irises growing in the middle of the Chalmette Battlefield. The photo was take November 13, 2021, a couple of weeks after the field was bush-hogged. The irises are difficult to tell apart from other other grasses growing in the field when they are not blooming.

LICI volunteers discovered Louisiana irises growing in the center of the battlefield last year where the community of Fazendeville once stood. https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/blooming-irises-the-last-reminder-of-a-village-that-was The irises had been hidden from view for decades because of their location being distant from the roadway that passes through the battlefield. The discovery of the irises is one of the reasons that the US Park Service launched their plant assessment study.

During the bloom season in early April the other grasses in the field begin to grow, making the irises even more difficult to see from the distant roadway. The purple color of the irises also helps to obscured them from a distance.

Since the battlefield is bush-hogged only twice each year, once in the summer and one in late fall, there would be no reason for any of the park staff to be out in the field during the iris bloom in April to discover them.

LICI has proposed moving some of these irises closer to the roadway so that they can be easily seen by the public when they bloom. A decision on this proposal will not be made by the Park Service until the assessment is completed in a couple of months.

"We really appreciate Kristy heading up this important project for us. What she will be doing will help what we now call the "Fazendeville Irises" to one day become a live exhibit of this important part of the battlefield's history." says LICI's Gary Salathe.

Kristy Wallisch hard at work planting a test patch of irises during LICI's first iris planting at the Chalmette Battlefield on February 10, 2021.

St. Bernard Louisiana State Park Gets More Louisiana Irises

January 9, 2022 Braithwaite, LA

LICI has partnered with Common Ground Relief to help restore areas of the forest in St. Bernard State Park, which is located southeast of New Orleans in Braithwaite, LA. Hurricanes Zeta and Ida opened up many areas of the tree canopy when huge hardwood trees were blown over. A decision was made for Common Ground Relief to work on replanting trees and LICI to bring in more Louisiana irises after representatives of LICI, Common Ground Relief and the Meraux Foundation walked the park's nature trail with park manager, Ginger Theriot, last year.

The Louisiana irises to be planted on January 6, 2022 arrive at St. Bernard State Park.

The first volunteer event to put that plan into effect took place on January 6th, 2022 when volunteers from Common Ground Relief planted 12 water hickory, 14 cypress, 14 water tupelo and 40 live oak trees. Both groups also worked together to plant 160 Louisiana irises. The trees were donated by Common Ground Relief from their wetlands nursery. The I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris were donated by LICI from their iris rescue program.

Park manager, Ginger Theriot, is seen giving the opening remarks at the start of the January 6th planting event.

Gary Salathe, with LICI, said there are some I. giganticaerulea irises naturally growing in the park, but they are not in locations along the nature trail where they can be easily seen by visitors to the park. This is the second time over the last year that LICI has planted irises at St. Bernard State Park.

Some of the irises are shown being brought out to the planting site on the January 6th planting event.

Common Ground Relief organized the January 6th volunteer event at the park. They hosted a group of student volunteers that week from the University of South Dakota that participated in the event. The group stayed at Common Ground Relief's headquarters as they did service activities in the New Orleans area.

Some of the trees to be planted are shown just before they were brought out to the planting site.

The Meraux Foundation partners with Common Ground Relief on many other projects in St. Bernard parish and have helped to financially support the LICI iris holding area.

Volunteers begin work planting Louisiana irises at St. Bernard State Park during the January 6th planting event.

Beaver Dam at the Northlake Nature Center Repaired During LICI Volunteer Event

January 6, 2022 Mandeville, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has organized a volunteer event to repair the holes in the Northlake Nature Center's beaver dam using volunteers from the local area and students from the University of South Dakota. The event took place on January 5, 2022, 2 1/2 years after the first hole developed in the dam.

The Northlake Nature Center was established in 1982 to preserve, study, and publicly exhibit the natural and cultural resources of southeast Louisiana.

LICI has an on-going iris planting project at the Northlake Nature Center. The project started as a Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) project in 2017 and LICI picked it up in 2020. Between 2017 and 2020, over 3,000 Louisiana irises were planted by various volunteers.

The idea was that this site would showcase all five species of the Louisiana iris and educate the public about this native plant, which has been part of the culture of south Louisiana for generations. The Northlake Nature Center’s raised boardwalk provides an ideal safe and accessible way for the public to view Louisiana irises growing and blooming in their native habitat.

This 2018 photo by photographer John Paul Duet shows some of the blooming irises while the water level in the cypress swamp was at its normal height.

This 2018 photo shows the Louisiana irises that were part of the iris planting project. The irises are in standing water because the water in the cypress swamp is at is normal height. This kept competing weeds, bushes and trees at bay.

The irises were planted in a cypress tree swamp at the nature center. This swamp was created by beavers damming up water drainage that runs naturally through a portion of the property. The beaver dam is ancient.It has 100-year-old cypress trees growing on it. It’s the only reason the cypress swamp is there.

This photo was taken during the winter of 2018 the day after the beavers repaired their dam for the last time.

2 1/2 years ago, a hole developed in the beaver dam that brought down the water level in the cypress swamp where the irises have been planted. Other competing grasses and bushes took advantage of the newly exposed mud and moved into the iris areas.In the last year, two hurricanes flooded the cypress swamp for extended periods of time and submerged the irises. (The holes in the beaver dam allowed storm surge tides to quickly push water into the cypress swamp.) These combined water level issues have led to the loss of many of the Louisiana irises.

Prior to 2020, beavers usually showed up in winter or early spring to repair any holes in their dam and then stayed for a couple of months. Once they had eaten all of the available food in the swamp created by their dam they would move on to other ponds in the area.

This photo, taken two weeks ago, shows the deepest of the three holes in the beaver dam that have developed since 2019.

In late 2019, a tree fell across the dam allowing the water in the cypress swamp to drain down. Unfortunately, the beavers did not show up that winter or the spring of 2020 to make repairs. They still haven’t shown up. The beavers are still in the area at other ponds, so it’s likely they have not come back because the number of people visiting the boardwalk spiked during the COVID pandemic. It seems that everyone is trying to find outdoor activities to do and visiting the Northlake Nature Center is one of them. Beavers are very skittish about being around people so it could be a long time, or never, before they come back.

This photo from 2020 shows how the grasses and weeds had begun crowding out the irises. They were able to move into the bare mud exposed by the water level staying down in the cypress swamp because of the holes in the beaver dam.

The CEO of the Northlake Nature Center accepted LICI's offer to repair the hole in the dam, which had grown into being three separate holes within a 20-foot section of the dam. LICI has said that they will consider bringing in more irises to replace the ones killed off after the repairs to the dam stabilize the water level in the cypress swamp and kill back the competing grasses and bushes by flooding them.

The volunteers begin work on Wednesday, January 5, 2022 repairing the beaver dam by digging clay from a nearby natural gas pipeline right-of-way.

The day for the beaver dam repair finally arrived on Wednesday morning January 5, 2022. LICI organized a volunteer event to get the job done. A group of student volunteers from the University of South Dakota, hosted by a local wetlands restoration non-profit, Common Ground Relief, combined with LICI volunteers did the repair work.

A wheelbarrow full of clay is shown being emptied at the dam repair site.

Each layer of clay brought in was tamped down using wood timbers. After each layer was compacted, a new 6 inch deep layer of clay was added.

Most of the volunteers are shown right after the last wheelbarrow full of clay was dumped out.