May 16, 2024 Lafayette, Louisiana
The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) completed its first Louisiana iris planting at Lafayette's Moncus Park on May 15, 2024. Mark Hernandez, the park's Grounds Director, invited LICI to do the planting using irises from the group's iris rescue program. Over 400 irises of the I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris were planted by volunteers from the public and members of the park's staff.
Hernandez organized the iris planting event as part of the park's initiative to increase the number of native plants growing there.
LICI's president and founder, Gary Salathe, represented the non-profit by delivering the irises and overseeing the volunteers.
Photo: Some of the thousands of Louisiana iris cultivars blooming during April 2024 at Moncus Park are shown.
Hernandez also owns Louisiana Iris Farms, an online Louisiana iris nursery. He is responsible for the park having Louisiana's largest display of irises. Five years ago, he successfully solicited donations of Louisiana iris cultivars from the Greater New Orleans Iris Society, members of the Society for Louisiana Irises and the public. These irises have multiplied into over 10,000 irises growing along the banks of the park's large lagoon.
Photo: Moncus Park's large center lagoon is the park's focal point. A popular concrete walking path circles the lagoon.
LICI currently has multiple locations in public parks where they plant their rescued irises, allowing them to multiply with minimum maintenance needed. These are in addition to LICI's usual rescued iris plantings at area refuges and nature preserves. "The blooming irises will be in view to the public in the park, furthering our goal of raising awareness of this wonderful native Louisiana plant," Salathe said. He added that the plan for the Moncus Park irises is not only for them to grow and multiply for many years in this protected location but also to be available for LICI or other groups to thin out for future iris restoration projects.
Photo: LICI "rescues" wild native Louisiana irises after receiving permission from the owner from sites where they will be destroyed, usually from the property being developed. Some of the I. giganticaerulea Louisiana irises shown in this 2023 iris rescue were used in the
Moncus Park planting.
Salathe and Hernandez selected a site at the far end of the lagoon, away from the Louisiana iris cultivar plantings. The plan was to put some distance between the I. giganticaerulea irises and the iris cultivars to reduce their chances of cross-pollinating. However, Hernandez said the park will also be dead-heading the seed pods each year to ensure the planting stays pure I. giganticaerulea irises.
Photo: This site was selected for the iris planting at Moncus Park a couple of weeks before the planting event.
Photo: Some of the volunteers and staff are shown beginning work planting irises on May 15th at the same site after the staff had prepared it by removing some of the other water plants, cutting the grass, and lowering the water in the lagoon 9".
In its native habitat, the I. giganticaerulea iris is often found growing in standing water. Since iris rhizomes float, the only way to plant the irises in a location at the park where they would be growing in 1" to 6" of water was to lower the lagoon's water level for the planting event. The park's staff did just that by partially opening the lagoon's water control structure two days before. The only risk to this plan was that the park had no way to raise the water back up to its full level after the iris planting. They would be dependent on enough rain falling to get the water level back up.
Photo: One of the park's staff is shown planting irises during the May 15th iris planting event.
The conditions were very pleasant on the morning of the iris planting event because a late-season cool front had passed through the area the night before. After 2 1/2 hours of work over 400 irises were in the ground.
Photo: Everyone who helped with the iris planting at Moncus Park is shown in the photo. "We appreciate this new connection between LICI and the park and look forward to seeing the irises bloom next spring. 'Thanks!' goes out to everyone who made
this planting possible," Salathe said.
Photo: The water level after a rainstorm two days later.
Two days later, another cool front passed through the area and dropped enough rain to raise the lagoon's level back to its full height. "It is so nice when things work out perfectly on one of our iris plantings!" Salathe said.
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