LICI Relocates 9,400 Louisiana Irises in Six Weeks at Fontainebleau State Park

February 1, 2024 Mandeville, LA

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) began an iris restoration project in January of 2021 in Fontainebleau State Park near Mandeville, LA. At the invitation of the then-park manager, LICI was invited to use a freshwater bog next to a group of picnic pavilions near the park's beach to plant Louisiana irises from their iris rescue program.

Photo: This photo from January 2021 shows the first irises being planted in the iris restoration project in the bog at Fontainebleau State Park. The volunteers had to hand-clear some bushes and weeds to make space available for the irises to grow since much of the bog was overgrown.  Nineteen volunteers planted one thousand irises.

All of the irises that were planted at the bog were the native I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris. They were planted in this public area of the park so that the blooming irises would be visible to the public, which furthers the LICI's goal of raising awareness of this native Louisiana plant. "The iris bog will also be a place for the irises to multiply on their own without any maintenance being needed so they can be thinned out in the future for use in other iris restoration projects inside and outside of the park," LICI's president, Gary Salathe, said at the time.

This video shows that during the 2022 spring iris bloom, the irises were doing so well in the bog that it landed as the number eight spot on LICI's annual spring ranking of places to see native irises blooming in southeast Louisiana.

The video above also shows an area on the right where the bog had yet to be cleared of brush. The ground level in that area was so high that it rarely held any standing water, which the I. giganticaerulea iris thrives in.

During the winter of 2022, LICI organized planting a few hundred more irises in the bog to fill up the last areas that held standing water most of the year. That resulted in the bog moving up to the fourth spot in the 2023 spring ranking.

Photo: During a LICI volunteer event in February of 2023, members of the US Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officers Association cleared off weeds, bushes, and vines to expand the iris plantings in the bog. They also planted five bald cypress trees and 150 Louisiana irises.

Later in 2023 the park manager was promoted and was replaced by a new park manager who was very interested in LICI's annual ranking of iris sites across south Louisiana. When she was told that the park's iris bog was ranked number four in the state as a place to see native irises blooming, she replied, "Well, we'll need to do something about that!" She wanted to know if she had the brush on the right side of the bog cleared out and then lowered the ground level and LICI filled it up with irises if that would help raise the bog in 2024's ranking. "We told her it would," Salathe says.

"Then something happened that had the potential to change everything," Salathe says. LICI had been posting multiple things on their Facebook page about the iris bog and how they needed to rescue many more irises to fill the new area once it was cleared of brush. They received a message through Facebook messenger from someone who read the postings that directed them to a remote area of the park that the person thought held thousands and thousands of these irises.

The video above shows only one of the areas of irises growing along the shoreline of

the newly discovered pond. (Notice how there are very few flowers on the irises.)

Once the remote pond was located it was determined that a 20-foot high dam created it. The dam, thought to be built in the 1940s, allowed the pond to be well above the water level of a nearby bayou that connects to Lake Pontchartrain.  "We surmised that because of it being at a higher elevation, the pond and its irises had escaped for decades from being hit with saltwater storm surges flowing up the bayou from the lake due to the hurricanes or tropical storms regularly hitting or brushing past the area.  The dam and height of the pond protected the irises and created what we now call the 'Jurassic Park of Irises' because tens of thousands of irises were growing in the pond." Salathe said.

According to Salathe, the irises were growing in such dense mats in the pond that it is unlikely that there was much of an iris bloom each year. "Irises need to be thinned out regularly or have plenty of space to expand to grow and bloom vigorously," he added.

LICI received permission from the manager to relocate irises from the pond once the work to clear the new areas of the bog was completed. The group began creating a plan to collect about 2,000 irises from a drainage way that interfered with water getting into the pond and then relocating them into the bog.

Since the very beginning of LICI planting irises in the bog, only about 40% of the overall bog has been available. The balance of the bog, seen in the photo, was covered in

brush and 10' tall trees.

"Then something happened that changed everything!" Salathe says. The area experienced an extreme drought that dried up the bog that summer and fall. "It turns out that while the manager was home sick for three days, the maintenance crew thought they would surprise her by clearing the entire bog that had no irises growing in it! As I stood there with her, looking out over the great expanse of newly cleared land and trying to get my head around it, I muttered, 'How much of this can we plant irises in?' Her response, though straightforward, took a while for it to sink in. 'You can plant the whole thing!' she replied", Salathe related.

Photo: Fontainebleau State Park Manager Jennifer Wallace in September of 2023, standing in front of the dry iris bog that her maintenance crew had entirely cleared.

Seeing an opportunity that might never come again and knowing that LICI had the irises to do it from the Jurassic Park of Irises, Salathe started "rallying the troops to see if it was even possible to pull this whole thing off." Once he had contacted every group that had previously helped them plant irises in the park the offers started coming in to help. 

Photo: The park's maintenance crew is shown using equipment to drain the bog and install a pipe so it can be drained again if needed.

Unfortunately, the first winter rains ended the drought before LICI could organize the first iris planting at the bog. They filled the entire bog with water, making it almost impossible to plant any irises since their rhizomes float. After discussing this with the park manager, she had her maintenance crew install a 4" pipe under the driveway that acted as the bog's dam so the bog could be drained. 

"We were finally ready to dig and plant irises!" Salathe said.

Photo: After two other volunteers dug up a trailer full of irises from the Jurassic Park of Irises the day before, the US Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officer's Guard's Association planted them into the bog. (Photo above.)  "They planted an impressive number of irises but they had

hardly put a dent in the space we needed to fill. It was clear this would require

an 'eating an elephant approach'; one bite at a time,"  Salathe said.

Photo: The next day, volunteers from the St. Tammany Master Gardeners Association and workers from Gulf Corps/Limitless Vistas dug up additional irises from the Jurassic Park of Irises. "With this increased number of volunteers, they collected

over a thousand irises," Salathe said.

Photo: Two days later, with the threat of severe thunderstorms coming, a group that included people from the community, Wild Ones - a native plant group, and members of the St. Tammany Master Gardeners Association planted all of the irises. The last iris went into the ground 30 minutes before the storms hit.

Salathe said, "Then the big guns came to the rescue! Our friends at the non-profit Common Ground Relief hosted 22 student volunteers and their leaders from Saint Paul's Catholic Student Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They were in New Orleans for a week of habitat restoration work. Common Ground Relief then included our Fontainebleau State Park iris restoration project for two days the group would be in town. On the first day, they dug up an incredible 5,000 irises from the 'Jurassic Park of Irises.' (Shown in the video above)  Then, equally unbelievable, they planted every last one of them the next day!" (Shown in the photo below.)

The final planting to finish the job occurred on January 24, 2024, six weeks after the first volunteer event. Volunteers from the Louisiana Conservation Corps planted 2,200 irises left over from an iris planting LICI did the day before at Nicholls State University Farm's wetlands project.

Photo: Volunteers from the Louisiana Conservation Corps are shown after the last 2,200 irises were planted after six weeks of iris plantings by various groups

in Fontainebleau State Park's iris bog.

Adding the last 2,200 irises and the 7,200 Louisiana irises the other volunteers had planted over the previous six weeks meant that LICI had planted an incredible 9,400 irises over six weeks into the bog. These irises have been added to what were likely 2,500 irises growing in the bog LICI had planted since the project started in 2021. "That means there are now almost 12,000 irises growing in the bog," Salathe proudly states.

These are the groups where the volunteers came from during the six-week effort:

St. Tammany Master Gardener Association 

Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans 

Wild Ones Pontchartrain Basin

The Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officers Association: New Orleans Chapter 

Gulf Corps/Limitless Vistas

Louisiana Iris Conservation volunteers

Common Ground Relief 

Volunteers from the local area that came out for a community iris planting event.

Saint Paul's Catholic Student Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Louisiana Conservation Corps

"We are so thankful for receiving all the help needed to complete the job!" Salathe says.

Photo: The day after the last irises were planted, a cap was put onto the 4" PVC pipe that acts as a drain for the iris bog. A heavy rain filled the bog to its full height a few days later.

LICI Completes First Annual Iris Planting At Palmetto Island State Park

December 5, 2023 Abbeville, LA

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has completed its first Louisiana iris planting in its Palmetto Island State Park iris restoration project. Fourteen volunteers planted over 700 I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris in the park's boardwalk swamp on Saturday, three days ago, in a rushed two-hour planting event organized by LICI. A line of severe thunderstorms passed through the area on the morning of the event, with the threat of more rain coming, according to Gary Salathe, president of LICI and organizer of the event. "For the first time ever, I actually had to call some of the volunteers who had plans to attend one of our events and tell them not to come. The roads were just not safe to be on," Salathe said.

The "Abbeville Red" iris is the common name for the I. nelsonii iris.

Photo: In August and again in October, LICI was called in to help save the Abbeville Red irises growing in the park's boardwalk swamp by watering them. They did so by pumping in water from a pond located 400' away. Although the swamp drys up each year in October, this year, when it did in June, it caused some concern. But when the leaves of the cypress trees turned rust-colored and dropped in August, that raised the alarm since it had never happened before.

The rain, or lack thereof, added another layer of complexity to the planting event. The area had grappled with a record-setting, extreme drought, and heat wave for almost six months. The event, initially planned for October, had to be postponed until the winter rains began due to the swamp drying out completely. "There was no way to plant the irises in the rock-hard ground, and they certainly would not have survived if it didn't rain soon after they were planted," Salathe emphasized, highlighting the urgency of the situation.

Photo: On the afternoon before the iris planting event, the conditions in the boardwalk swamp were ideal. Enough rain had fallen on the site over the previous week to make the ground moist enough for the irises to be planted and survive without standing water.

The planting event was scheduled for December 2nd after it rained a few times in the park in mid-November. It was planned and organized as a huge community event. Several local groups had signed on to help by supplying volunteers; a local priest was to give a benediction, a musician was going to play background music for the group as they worked, and Patrick O'Connor, president of the Greater New Orleans Iris Society, had agreed to give the opening remarks.

Ed Wilhelm of the Abbeville Garden Club helped out by weed-eating the areas where the irises were to be planted the week before the event.

Photo: The I. nelsonii irises growing at the LICI iris holding area for the planting were dug up a few days before the event. "They had to be planted within a few days,'' Salathe said.

Then, everything, except the actual planting of irises, was canceled a couple of days before the event when the weather forecast predicted heavy thunderstorms for the event day. Since the amount of expected rain would likely fill the boardwalk swamp to its full height for winter, the event could not be rescheduled since it's impossible to plant irises in standing water over 1" deep. However, a core group of die-hard volunteers agreed to come "rain or shine" and try to get the irises planted before the rain arrived.

The irises, which had been dug up from their containers at LICI's New Orleans iris holding a few days before, arrived at the park the afternoon of the day before the event.

Photo: Organizers of the planting event found this scene at daybreak; the boardwalk swamp had been filled to the brim from the overnight rain. Most areas of the

swamp held 6" of water.

Then disaster struck. The night before the event, violent thunderstorms hit the area for hours and dropped 3" of rain in the park. At daybreak, it was discovered that the boardwalk swamp was now filled to the brim. To make matters worse, the line of storms was still between the park and many of the volunteers who were to drive to the park to do the planting. Salathe called them and asked them to stay home since the roads would be dangerous.

Photo: Volunteers are seen planting irises wherever they could find shallow water in the swamp, usually among the roots against the trunks of the cypress trees and

along the edges of the swamp.

Fortunately, fourteen volunteers who lived on the park side of the line of storms came out to plant the irises. The group decided to dispense with opening remarks and get right to work planting irises since more rain was still possible.

After walking through the site, it was decided that the irises could be planted in the shallow water against the roots of the cypress trees and along the edge of the swamp. Neither of these options was considered in the earlier planning before the rains came because they would likely be the first areas to go dry if another drought hits next year. However, it was the only way to get the 700 irises planted.

Photo: On December 2nd, Fred Villen is shown by his wife's plaque on the boardwalk as he takes a break from planting irises.

The boardwalk in Palmetto Island State Park underwent extensive renovations in 2016. At the time, Fred Villien, a resident of the area, made a substantial donation to the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park to have the boardwalk rebuilt using expensive non-rot composite deck material. He donated in memory of his deceased wife, Ruth Villen, a beloved local high school teacher and an avid gardener who loved the outdoors. Salathe related this story, "We called Mr. Fred, who is up in age, to invite him just to come out and sit and watch the volunteers work planting irises. But he laughed and responded that he would be coming not with a lawn chair but with his shovel to plant irises! And he did! He arrived one hour before the other volunteers, so we put him to work when he said he didn't want to wait for the event to start!"

Photo: Kent Benton and his son Forest are shown a few days before the planting event at Palmetto State Park as they load up a trailer with Abbeville Red

irises Benton is donating.

Every one of the Abbeville Red 700 irises that were planted was donated by Kent Benton, a Louisiana iris aficionado with a particular interest in the I. nelsonii iris. He grows thousands of Louisiana irises in his private nursery on his Livingston Parish farm. He has developed a technique for propagating these irises from seeds created by the close capture method of pollination.

Benton donated hundreds of I. nelsonii seedlings to LICI in July for the project. They have been grown out at their iris holding area in New Orleans and were used in the December 2nd planting at the park. In addition, he donated hundreds of mature I. nelsonii irises the week before the planting event, which were also planted the day of the event.

Benton has propagated Abbeville Red irises from irises other growers collected from the wild years ago. "We appreciate Kent's support for the iris restoration project at Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk swamp with these iris donations. It is allowing us to get a one-year head start on the iris restoration project, " Salathe said. In the future, LICI will use irises grown from seeds they collect from the Abbeville Swamp each summer with the landowners' permission.

Photo: The wet and tired volunteers are shown after the last iris was planted on December 2nd. (Some volunteers are not shown because they had to leave early.)

LICI plans to hold an Abbeville Red iris bloom event on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at Palmetto Island State Park while the irises already growing in the boardwalk swamp and the newly planted irises all bloom. "This will only be possible because of the dedicated fourteen volunteers who braved tough weather conditions to get the irises planted. Thank you!" Salathe summed up.

LICI Gives a Presentation About the Threatened Abbeville Red Iris to CPCRPA

October 30, 2023 Abbeville, La.

On October 28, 2023, Gary Salathe, with the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI), and Donald Sagrera, Executive Director of the Teche-Vermilion Fresh Water District, each gave a presentation during an October 17th board of directors meeting of the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority (CPCRPA) in Abbeville, La. The Commission's regular board meeting location is in Lake Charles, La., but each year, they do one meeting in Abbeville, La., which is on the far eastern side of their territory. Sagarera and Salathe were invited by one of the local board members of CPCRPA to speak at the meeting.

The Chenier Plain Authority’s territory includes the Parishes of Calcasieu, Cameron, & Vermilion.

The CPCRPA is a political subdivision of the State of Louisiana and, through its board of commissioners, is organized with the primary mission to establish, construct, operate, or maintain flood control works as they relate to hurricane protection, tidewater flooding, saltwater intrusion, and conservation, and a secondary duty to establish flood control, adequate drainage relating to tidal or riverine flooding, and water resources development including but not limited to construction of reservoirs, diversion canals, gravity and pump drainage systems, erosion control measures, and marsh management, and is authorized to enter into contracts and agreements.

Photo: The Tech-Vermilion Fresh Water District's pumping station at the Atchafalaya River is shown pumping water into the Bayou Teche watershed earlier this year when only three of the five pumps were needed to maintain water levels in the watershed.

Donal Sagrera’s presentation was about the historic saltwater intrusion currently underway in the Vermilion River and what the Teche-Vermilion Fresh Water District is doing to try to push it back toward the Gulf of Mexico. He described the systems of pumps they use to force fresh water from the Atchafalaya River into the Bayou Teche watershed and how canals, locks, and other water control structures that they operated divert some of that water into the Vermilion River watershed for use by the towns and farms along the river. In addition, during the last two years, and especially this year, they are increasingly pumping fresh water into the system to hold back saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico that is trying to work its way up the Vermilion River due to an extended drought which is reducing the freshwater flow in the river.

Gary Salathe’s presentation was about the discovery of the I. nelsonii Louisiana irises (Abbeville Red Iris) in a privately owned swamp near Abbeville, La. in the late 1930’s and how it was named a distinct Louisiana species in 1966.

Salathe recounted how, on October 18th, 2011, the Friends of Palmetto Island, Inc. nonprofit joined Palmetto Island State Park, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, along with some of the Office of State Park’s staff to plant 100 rhizomes of native Abbeville Red iris within the park so that the public could see and learn about these irises as they are blooming. Establishing the Abbeville Red iris planting in the park was a cooperative effort through a partnership between the Louisiana Office of State Parks and the Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries. The Wildlife and Fisheries provided the funding, and the Office of State Parks provided the location. The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park purchased the irises and helped plant many of them.

Photo: Members of the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park and the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative are shown April 5h, 2023, at the boardwalk in the park as they announce the partnership of the two groups to restore the Abbeville Red Louisiana iris planting there.

The Friends group has maintained the iris planting site at the park's boardwalk over the years as volunteers were available. Salathe explained that the Friends group had difficulty starting back up and maintaining the irises after COVID-19 stopped all volunteer work for two years, so they invited LICI to take over the effort. LICI received a permit to manage the iris planting at the park and increase the number of irises, and the Friends group has now partnered in the effort by funding it.

Photo: This slide from Salathe's presentation shows the proximity of Palmetto Island State Park and the Turkey Island Swamp ( also known as the Abbeville Swamp) to Vermilion Bay on the northern edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

The main point of Sagarera's presentation was not just to educate those present on the purpose and efforts of the Teche-Vermilion Fresh Water District but also to warn them that even though they have been operating their pumps full-out 24 hours per day since June, they have not been able to keep saltwater from moving up the Vermilion River since August.

Graphic: The room fell silent when the full impact of this slide was shown as the last slide of Donald Sagrera's presentation to the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority. It shows the historic levels of salt water that were in the Vermilion River at their different testing sites in October 2023 as compared to the same month over the last six years.

Native Louisiana iris species in coastal swamps and marshes can survive up to 10 parts per thousand of salt. However, their growth is impacted if they are subject to long periods of this level of salt. They can tolerate pulses up to 22 parts per thousand for brief periods during a hurricane storm surge. (Cypress trees match iris' levels for intolerance to salt.) The reading from the river's water tests at Palmetto Island State Park on Sagarera's slide was 17 parts per thousand.

Photo: Portions of the Abbeville Swamp are shown along Young's Canal. These areas of the swamp are 24” – 36” above the tidal impacts from the Vermilion River during dry periods.

In a discussion about Sagarera's slide once his presentation ended, Salathe said that, fortunately, the I. nelsonii irises growing in the Palmetto Island State Park's iris restoration project are about 12" to 18" above a very high tide, so they haven't been affected yet. He said the same is true for some of the Abbeville Swamp areas located just upriver from the park. However, much of the Abbeville Swamp is at the river water's height and is influenced by the tide during dry periods.

The main point of Salathe’s presentation was that the original swamp, where the irises can still be found, and the boardwalk swamp in the state park, where the irises from the 2011 planting are still growing, are both threatened by the saltwater intrusion from the Vermilion River and from hurricane storm surges and how these threats to this extremely rare native plant may be able to be used to acquire funding for projects to protect both sites. Just as many other rare plants and animals have been used nationally to justify huge outlays in funds to protect them and their habitat, the same could be done with the I. nelsonii iris.

The meeting was attended by people from the community and leaders in other coastal and parish boards, governmental agencies, and civic organizations. "We appreciated the opportunity to help make the board members of the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority and others in attendance at the meeting aware of this special rare native iris and the threats to its habitat," Salathe said afterward.

Sagarera and Salathe were contacted by a member of the CPCRPA staff the next day, saying that the board members were very interested in both presentations and asked if they would each email their presentations to them for future use. LICI also did a Facebook posting of Gary's presentation, which can be found here.

A Facebook video by Donal Sagarera about their work to pump fresh water into the watershed this fall can be found here.