2025 Louisiana Iris Viewing Locations and Ranking

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative has released its 2025 Louisiana Iris Bloom Season Ranking and Map, detailing where to find native irises blooming. The Louisiana Iris Viewing Locations 2025 map and ranking can be found by clicking HERE.

Or, here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/edit?mid=1-1diSiMlrpN1fD_1Bx14paN9FDINb-Q&ll=30.357800028672116%2C-91.2461002932415&z=8

You can zoom in on the map to find the exact location of each site.

You can click on each location’s icon and you will be taken to a page of that site with details on the location and photos.

You can find the ranking of each site from the number one site's "spectacular" to the number 23 site's "Good" on the Google Maps page.

It is important to note that there may be additional locations where native irises can be seen blooming that are more challenging to access or located on private property. LICI's goal is to direct the public to areas where it is safe and easy to view this treasured native Louisiana plant while it is in bloom, including the state wildflower, the Louisiana iris species I. giganticaerulea

On March 26, 2025, only a few of the sites have teh irises begun to bloom, but the pace is expected to pick up next week and continue for three weeks. The map has now been released, allowing people to plan their trips to the sites.

Each location can start and finish blooming at different times from the other locations. As a rule, the further south the location, the earlier they bloom.

It's essential to note that the iris bloom typically lasts only two to three weeks at each location, with the peak bloom occurring in the middle.

You can find regular updates about many of the locations as the iris bloom progresses on the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative's Facebook page.

LICI's 2024 Year in Review

Report on activities and projects of the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative from December 2023 through December 2024.

December 2023: LICI organizes an iris-planting event at Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp. Kent Benton donated the 700 Abbeville Red irises that were planted as full-size plants or as seedlings earlier in the year. Volunteers from LICI, the local community, and the Abbeville Garden Club braved harsh weather conditions to plant the irises.

December 2023: Four signs were created by LICI to be installed at two state park iris restoration projects after extended negotiations with the State Park’s Baton Rouge main office on the wording to be used.  Two were installed later in the year at Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp and two were installed at the Fontainebleau State Park iris bog.  These signs are the first time anything has ever been mentioned within the parks that removing plants is against the law.

December 2023:  LICI collects the Abbeville Red seedlings from the three groups germinating the seeds collected in July from the Abbeville Swamp. The 800 seedlings are planted into containers at LICI’s New Orleans nursery. They will be planted into Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp during the winter of 2024.

This is the world’s rarest Louisiana iris species.

January 2024:  During multiple volunteer events, LICI organized relocating 9,400 native Louisiana irises from a remote pond in Fontainebleau State Park to the newly expanded iris bog in the park.  The irises have been added to what were likely 2,500 irises already growing in the bog that LICI had planted since the project started in 2021.  That brings the total number of irises growing in the bog to almost 12,000.

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.

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 Initiative’s volunteers

Common Ground Relief 

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

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

Louisiana Conservation Corps

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) and Common Ground Relief completed their winter 2023 - 2024 joint tree planting project at the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Bayou Sauvage National Urban Wildlife Refuge in March 2024.  The activities are listed here to separate them from the Louisiana iris activities of LICI.  The two groups gathered enough volunteers to plant over 3,000 tree seedlings this winter.

A volunteer group is shown during one of LICI's fall 2023 Monday work-morning events. LICI has held these work mornings each spring and fall since 2021 to kill the Chinese tallow invasive tree species to open areas up for new native trees to be planted. They also cleared brush and young tallow trees that covered existing native trees, which had been planted in previous years by other volunteer groups.

LICI was the originator and permit holder for the Chinese tallow tree eradication project and the tree planting project in the refuge, which has been ongoing for three years.

Gary Salathe, LICI's president, helped organize many of this season's tree-planting events, supervised the volunteers on some days, and helped supervise on other days.  

LICI's volunteers worked in the weeks before this year's tree plantings to kill bushes and Chinese tallow trees in some areas where the trees were to be planted. LICI's volunteers also set up small flags where each tree was to be planted in the days before each tree planting event in the refuge's ridge forest. Their volunteers also helped with planting the trees.

Common Ground Relief's co-directors, Josh Benitez and Christina Lehew, ordered the trees, delivered the trees and the equipment needed, supplied volunteer groups, helped organize some of the events, and helped to supervise the volunteers on many of the planting days.

The Ella West Foundation and New Orleans Town & Gardeners issued the grants that funded the cost of the tree seedlings and Common Ground Relief’s overhead.

Common Ground Relief's co-directors, Josh Benitez and Christina Lehew, are shown on the non-profit's boat as they ferry volunteers for a tree planting event in the Bayou Sauvage Refuge in February 2024.

The tree planting events for the 2023-2024 winter planting season at the refuge:

January 9 to January 11, 2024

Sixteen student volunteers and their leaders from Drew University in New Jersey planted 1,000 bare-root hardwood seedlings. Common Ground Relief hosted the group during their one-week trip to New Orleans to volunteer for habitat restoration projects. They were staying at Common Ground's Ninth Ward headquarters buildings.

The Drew University volunteers are seen with bags full of tree seedlings as they prepare to go out to the planting site.

The group planted white oak, live oak, and American elm tree seedlings. Benitez said these are some of the tree species listed in a study done by the University of New Orleans of the native trees that were found in the refuge's ridge forest. The study was done just prior to Hurricane Katrina. "One of our goals is to try and get some of the tree species that did not survive the hurricane back into the ridge forest. However, the main goal is to replace every Chinese tallow tree in the boardwalk's ridge forest with a native tree," he said.

The seedlings were planted in the boardwalk area of the refuge's ridge forest. The group replaced about 25% of the trees planted last year that did not survive the extreme drought the area experienced this past summer and fall.

The Drew University volunteers and the project supervisors are seen after the last tree seedling was planted on January 11th.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Volunteers from Common Ground Relief and LICI planted hundreds of bald cypress trees in a remote area of the refuge that was only accessible by boat. The refuge manager, Pon Dixson, ferried the volunteers, trees, and equipment to the site and back.

The Chinese tallow trees had not been killed off at this new site, so plans will be made to come back in the fall to do this.

Some of the volunteers from February 15th are shown in the photo on the left during the boat ride to the site. All of the volunteers are shown in the group photo taken at the end of the day.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Nine volunteers from Limitless Vistas, Louisiana Master Naturalist of Greater New Orleans, Common Ground Relief, and LICI planted over 250 tree seedlings on a gloomy, drizzly day. The group planted cypress and hackberry trees in the refuge's boardwalk ridge forest.

LICI's Gary Salathe (center) is seen with two of the workers from Limitless Vistas during the February 16th tree planting event.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Volunteers from Common Ground Relief, Limitless Vistas, Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans, and LICI returned to the refuge's ridge forest and planted another 350 bald cypress and hackberry trees.

After planting the last trees, the February 19th volunteers took this group photo.

February 27 - 29, 2024

Local volunteers from Common Ground Relief and LICI worked for three days to finish planting cypress trees in the remote area of the refuge that was only accessible by boat. (Photo left)

Monday, March 4, 2024

Volunteers from Limitless Vistas, Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans, and LICI returned to the refuge's ridge forest. They planted the last of the 3,000 trees, finishing up the project for the year.

 Limitless Vistas' workers are seen getting ready to plant the last cypress and hackberry trees in the refuge's ridge forest on March 4th.

Back to the Louisiana iris activities:

February 2024: LICI releases its annual interactive map of places to see Louisiana irises blooming. Common Ground Relief assisted in creating the map.  Three months later, at the end of the spring iris bloom season, over 55,000 people will have clicked on and viewed it in Google Maps.  The goal of the map was to encourage people to get out to the boardwalks to not only see the blooming Louisiana irises but to also learn about these important Louisiana habitats.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-s-2024-louisiana-iris-viewing-location-map-acheives-record-number-of-views

The photos below are from some of the sites listed on the map as the irises bloomed.

March 2024: The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park’s board of directors votes to allow LICI to hold an iris bloom event at the same time as the Friends’ annual Stir the Pot fundraiser.  Both organizations hope to benefit from introducing new people to each other’s group.

March 2024: The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) helped civic organizers put together a Louisiana iris planting event in the town of Pierre Part, La.  The volunteers worked hard and planted hundreds of Louisiana irises from the LICI iris rescue program. Half of the irises were planted into a small cypress swamp at the site of the future Pierre Part Belle River Museum site and the other half were planted at a new Veterans Park-Assumption  Parish Recreation District 2 kayak launch in town.

The volunteers came from the local community, and even some LICI volunteers drove in from Madisonville, New Orleans, Thibodaux, and Cut Off, La. 

March 2024:  LICI’s Gary Salathe gives a presentation to a Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) conference on the Abbeville Red iris and its threatened native habitat in the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park.  The organization is comprised of representatives from industry and small businesses, fisheries, farming, oil and gas, government agencies, individual citizens, landowners, civic organizations, hunters, scientists, engineers, environmentalists, economists, and urban planners.

March 2024:  LICI organizes a tour of portions of the Abbeville Swamp to better understand the threats to the swamp and why, over the last decades, the Abbeville Red irises are disappearing. Some of the landowners and a Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries staff member with experience in water control structures took part in the tour.

April 2024: LICI markets its iris bloom event at Palmetto Island State Park on social media in the Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas. The postings are placed on over 8,000 Facebook newsfeeds.

April 2024:   The Palmetto Island State Park manager, Andrea Jones, approves LICI’s plan to use the boardwalk swamp as a clearing house to relocate some of the Abbeville Red irises back into the Abbeville Swamp each year.  The plan is to grow out between 1,500 to 2,000 seeds each year that will be collected from the Abbeville swamp.   The irises from the seeds will be planted into the park’s boardwalk swamp.  Iris experts will confirm that they are pure Abbeville Red irises as they bloom the following spring.   Many of them will then be relocated back into the swamp later that year.

April 2024: LICI organizes an investigative trip to the property of the largest landowner within the Abbeville Swamp while the Abbeville Red irises are blooming. The purpose of the trip was to better estimate how many irises can still be found in their area of the swamp and to look more closely at the causes for their slow disappearance. They confirm that vast areas of that portion of the Abbeville Swamp no longer hold any irises, and the number of irises there could likely be numbered by only hundreds of plants, not thousands. 

April 2024: LICI received their 6,000th follower on the LICI Facebook page.   Gary Salathe of LICI said, “We appreciate everyone that is following our page and sharing our postings. You are helping to get the word out about preserving our wonderful wild native irises and the habitats in which they live.  Thank you!!”

April 2024:  LICI holds its first Abbeville Red iris bloom event during the Friends’ Stir the Pot event. 

The educational event included a guest speaker, Patrick O’Connor, who gave a presentation in the park’s meeting room on Louisiana irises and the history of the Abbeville Red iris being named a separate species of Louisiana iris.  Other iris experts answered questions at the nearby boardwalk’s displays.

Each of the estimated two hundred event attendees paid the entrance fee for the Friends’ Stir the Pot event. 

April 2024:  The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative created five poster boards showing the five species of Louisiana irises.  They posted the five posters on the LICI Facebook page and offered to send them to anyone as a jpg or pdf file.  Almost 100 people from around the country, including many educators,  requested that the files be emailed to them, which was done.

May 2024:   Patrick O’Connor, the guest speaker at LICI’s iris bloom event in April, returned to Palmetto Island State Park to give the same presentation to members of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association in an event organized by LICI in the park’s meeting room. The presentation was followed by the group touring the boardwalk and walking some of the nearby trails.

That afternoon, Patrick repeated his presentation to members of various governmental agencies and some of the Abbeville Swamp's owners. This was followed by LICI’s Gary Salathe giving a presentation to the group about the threats to the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park from extremely high tides and saltwater intrusion.

May 2024:   Volunteer students from Madisonville Junior High, along with their teacher, Renee Davis, and some of the parents of the students that planted a few hundred irises from the LICI iris rescue program at Fairview-Riverside State Park near Madisonville, La.  The I. giganticaerulea native Louisiana irises that were planted were from LICI’s iris rescue program.

The irises were planted near the historic Otis House among 300-year-old live oak trees that overlook the swamp.  The manager of the park predicts this is going to be a go-to location for photographers next spring when the irises bloom.

May 2024:  LICI’s Gary Salathe is invited to give a presentation to the Vermilion River Alliance at their meeting in Abbeville on the Abbeville Red iris and its threatened habitat.  After the meeting, one of the organizations in attendance offered to help fund the protection of the Abbeville Swamp from saltwater intrusion and extremely high tides.

May 2024:  The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative organized and put on its first iris planting event in Lafayette, LA’s Moncus Park.  LICI volunteers joined with park staff and local volunteers to plant hundreds of I. giganticaerulea native Louisiana irises in a section of the park away from the park’s extensive Louisiana iris cultivar plantings. 

The hope is that these irises will not cross-pollenate with the cultivars so they can be thinned out in the future to use in other native iris restoration projects.  The irises planted during the event will also have their seed pods cut off each year to help keep the stand pure I. giganticaerulea irises.

June 2024: A LICI volunteer visits the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Cameron Parish, where he sees numerous examples of large and small water control structures that could be used at the Abbeville Swamp to combat saltwater intrusion and extremely high tides.

June 2024: During their June Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) general membership meeting, its president, Patrick O’Connor, gives a revised version of his May presentation from the LICI event in Palmetto Island State Park on the Abbeville Red iris.  His presentation now includes the threats to the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park’s irises.  He also tells the group he supports LICI’s efforts in southern Vermilion Parish and will look for ways the GNOIS can help.

July 2024:   For the second year in a row, LICI completes its annual collection of the Abbeville Red seeds from the Abbeville Swamp in Vermilion Parish.  Five different organizations volunteered to germinate the 2,187 seeds for LICI, including the Acadiana Native Plant Project, Greater New Orleans Iris Society, Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association,  Abbeville Garden Club, and the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP).  

The seedlings will be collected from the five groups in January 2025 and planted into containers to grow out at LICI’s New Orleans iris nursery.  The irises will then be planted into the Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp during the winter of 2025.

July 2024: Attendees of the the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Youth Gathering in New Orleans volunteered to work at the LICI iris holding area as part of their work-morning at Common Ground Relief’s nursery next door.  

Thousands of high school age volunteers were fanning out across New Orleans for two days doing service work as part of their experiences in attending the Youth Gathering. The attendees are from all over the United States.

The volunteers worked hard doing maintenance in LICI’s nursery.

August 2024:   Volunteers from Tulane University worked at the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative Iris Holding area in the lower ninth ward neighborhood of New Orleans.  They replace rotted wood pallets that are used to support LICI’s iris growing containers with plastic pallets.

September 2024:  LICI volunteers participated in a meeting at New Iberia, La.'s City Hall to explain to various city and Iberia Parish organizations the plan for the inaugural Acadiana Native Iris Festival being held in March of 2026 and to invite their participation.

The meeting was held in the council chambers of City Hall.   The heads of the parish and city tourist commissions were in attendance, along with the leaders of various civic organizations. The first day of the festival will be held in New Iberia’s City Park and guest speakers in the nearby historic Sliman Theater for the Performing Arts.  Activities will be centered at the extensive Louisiana iris planting in City Park.   

The second day of the festival will be held in Palmetto Island State Park, near Abbeville, La., with the focus being the native Abbeville Red Louisiana irises growing the park’s boardwalk swamp.

September 2024:  LICI donated a total of over 100 one-gallon pots of I. giganticaerulea native Louisiana irises to three groups growing their Abbeville Red iris seedlings this year as a way to show their appreciation.   The pots of irises were donated to the Abbeville Garden Club (photo upper left), the Acadiana Native Plant Project (upper right), and the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association (left). The irises were sold as a fundraiser by the three groups.

October 2024: Volunteers from the Louisianan Iris Conservation Initiative, along with park staff, planted 200 I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris, otherwise known as the Abbeville Red iris, at the boardwalk swamp in Palmetto Island State Park.   This is the first planting of what is hoped to be a total of 900 by the end of the planting season in December.

October 2024: The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has donated over twenty-seven one-gallon pots of I. giganticaerulea native Louisiana irises to T.E.C.H.E Project  The non-profit is based in The Arnaudville, La.  T.E.C.H.E Project council member Patti Holland, shown on left, accepted LICI’s donation of irises to the group. 

T.E.C.H.E. Project is all about protecting and enhancing Bayou Teche's ecology and preserving the culture and history of the region the bayou travels through. Their projects involve educating the public about how Bayou Teche can become a healthier waterway through action. Part of their action projects involve planting native plants along the many miles of the bayou's shoreline. That's where LICI comes in.

LICI has donated native Louisiana irises to the T.E.C.H.E. Project for many of their kayak launches that are part of their Bayou Teche Paddle Trail. They have installed fifteen first-class access sites along the 135-mile length of the bayou, which includes kayak and canoe launches, parking, and a floating dock. Many of the sites also have bathrooms.   They are also LICI’s partner in the New Iberia City Park planting, which will be the location for the first day of the 2026 Acadiana Native Louisiana Iris Festival.

October 2024: Volunteers from LICI and the Abbeville Garden Club planted a few hundred Abbeville Red irises into the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk swamp iris restoration project on Wednesday, October 16th.

The planting included Abbeville Red irises donated by the Louisiana Iris Species Preservation Project (Seen on right).  The group is comprised of members of the Society for Louisiana Irises.  They propagate Louisiana irises to create a permanent collection of representative examples of the colors and forms of each species from throughout its geographic range.

October 2024: LICI’s volunteers did a very unusual Louisiana iris rescue at the Nichols State University Farm in Thibodaux, La. The group collected a couple hundred pots of irises the university donated to LICI.  The pots of irises consisted of the four different Louisiana iris species that grow wild in the state.

The irises were donated to the university farm years ago by an iris group. Over the years, the staff and volunteers at the farm have worked to increase their number by dividing and re-potting them. However, as any home iris gardener knows, growing irises for the long term is a challenge because the rich, moist soil they love is also loved by weeds. For the last couple of years, the irises have not been kept up as they should have.

The manager of the iris project retired this past May.

LICI volunteers noticed this spring while they were working on the iris restoration project LICI currently has underway at the farm that the staff was struggling to maintain the pots of irises. They recently became concerned that many of the irises were threatened with dying due to being overrun with weeds.

LICI offered the university a deal; they would take the irises if the university donated them and use them in LICI’s iris restoration projects.  In return, if they need any species of irises for their experiments or studies in the future, LICI will donate as many as they need back to them from our iris rescue program.

October 2024:   The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative was thanked by the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park for helping to raise the funds needed for them to purchase new canoes and firepits for the park.  

LICI’s 2024 Abbeville Bloom event was held on the day of the Friends group’s Stir the Pot annual fundraiser event at the park.  It's estimated that the LICI bloom event was responsible for over 200 people attending the Stir the Pot event and paying the event's entrance fee, which is how the funds were raised to purchase the items.

October 2024:   The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative organized a volunteer event at the request of Jean Landry, manager of The Nature Conservancy's Lafitte Woods - Gilletta Tract in Grand Isle, La.  Volunteers from LICI, the Restore Grand Isle non-profit, and the Louisiana Conservation Corps worked to clean up the iris bog.

October 2024:  Volunteers from the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative planted a few hundred Louisiana irises in the boardwalk swamp at Fairview-Riverside State Park near Madisonville, La.  LICI donated the rescued I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris for the event that was organized by LICI.   

Fifty rare white I. giganticaerulea irises that were part of a donation by the Greater New Orleans Iris Society were included in the planting. (Shown on left.)

November 2024:  For the fourth year in a row, LICI held a Louisiana iris planting event at the Pelican Park/Recreation District #1 iris restoration project. The group worked hard and planted 780 to the 3,000 irises already growing in the iris bog from our previous years' plantings. 

The volunteers were from the public, our LICI volunteers, the St. Tammany parish native plant group Wild Ones Pontchartrain Basin Chapter, and the Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans. They planted the I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris from our iris rescue program today into the iris bog.

November 2024:  LICI was invited by the Louisiana Children's Museum staff in New Orleans City Park to participate in their Environmental Rescue event.  The special event was held at the museum to teach children and their parents why recycling, conservation, and environmental restoration are so important by engaging children in meaningful, playful learning experiences.

LICI participated in a demonstration of creating a storm-water management system by using native Louisiana plants to help cleanse and absorb rainwater runoff.  Since Louisiana irises use a huge amount of water as they grow and help remove nutrients from the swamp waters where they live, they are the ideal plant to accomplish this same job in urban storm-water retention projects.

LICI donated 100 rescued I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris for the project.   Gary Salathe, president of LICI, taught the volunteers from Groundwork New Orleans how to plant the irises and then helped plant them during the event.

November 2024:  The manager of Palmetto Island State Park in Vermillion Parish has asked LICI to organize an Abbeville Red iris bloom event at the park, which is located near Abbeville, La.  The event will be hosted by the park, but LICI’s volunteers will be working as park volunteers, along with the park's staff and volunteers from the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park to help put on the event.  LICI will also be helping to fund the event.

LICI has also been asked to help with a proposed Society for Louisiana Irises tour of the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk on Friday, April 4th, as part of their members from around the country gathering in Lafayette, La., for their 2025 convention.

November 2024: LICI organized a planting event of native Louisiana irises at the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site in St. Martinville, La.  It was a great group of volunteers from the St. Martinville Garden Club, some of our LICI volunteers, and twenty high-school students from the St. Martin parish school district ROTC program who worked hard while having fun planting the irises.  The volunteers work along with the staff of the historic site.

They planted 450 irises of the I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris from the LICI iris rescue program in a pond at the rear area of the site.

December 2024: Volunteers from LICI participated in a meeting at Abbeville, La.'s City Hall to explain to various city and Vermilion Parish organizations the plan for the inaugural Acadiana Native Iris Festival being held in March of 2026 and to invite their participation.

The meeting was held on Thursday, December 12, 2024 in the council chambers of City Hall.   The mayor of Abbeville was in attendance along with the manager of Palmetto Island State Park. The heads of the parish and city tourist commissions were in attendance, along with the leaders of various civic organizations. The second day of the Festival will be held in Palmetto Island State Park with activities centered in the park's meeting room for guest speakers and at the blooming "Abbeville Red" irises in the nearby boardwalk swamp. 

Information on the April 5, 2025 Abbeville Red Iris Bloom event at Palmetto Island State Park was also discussed at the meeting, with an invitation for groups to participate in this, too.

December 2024: 6th and 7th grade classes from Country Day School in New Orleans helped out to the LICI Ninth Ward iris holding area as part of a work-morning at the Common Ground Relief wetlands nursery next door.

The 67 student volunteers worked hard weeding the containers of irises, emptying containers of dirt, filling pots with soil and replacing rotted wood pallets with plastic pallets.

December 2024:  LICI organized and held an iris planting event in Grand Isle, La. using our LICI volunteers and Restore Grand Isle non-profit volunteers.  500 I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris from the LICI’s iris rescue program were planted into an iris restoration project in The Nature Conservancy's Lafitte Woods - Gilletta Tract.   The iris bog is part of The Nature Conservancy's Lafitte Woods on Grand Isle.

December 2024:  A group of volunteers, including Louisette L. Scott - Park Planner, planted Louisiana irises in the iris bog at Pelican Park/Recreation District #1 iris bog in St. Tammany parish, near Mandeville, La.  They added another 400 native Louisiana irises to the 1,080 irises that were added at LICI’s iris planting events held in the previous two weeks. This means that the current count of irises planted into the park's iris bog this season stands at 1,480 irises.  Its estimated that there are around 3,000 irises growing in the bog that LICI has planted in previous years’ iris planting events.  The I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris came from LICI’s iris rescue program.

December 2024:   The Louisiana iris Conservation Initiative donated pots of native I. giganticaerulea species of the Louisiana iris to artist Hannah Chalew for a multi-media art piece she created that was commissioned for Prospect 6 New Orleans at the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans.  The piece is titled Orphan Well Gamma Garden: 2024 

The materials used to create the piece included; metal, sugarcane, disposable plastic waste, lime, recycled paint, paper made from sugarcane combined with shredded disposable plastic waste ("plasticane"), ink made from persimmon, goldenrod, indigo, copper and oak galls, pumps, irrigation tubing, diffuser, "fertile rot" scent, soil, water and Louisiana irises and other marsh plants.  LICI donated the irises.

The piece shows two abandoned oil wellheads being reclaimed by nature.

It will be on display at the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans from December 2024 until February 2, 2025.

Hannah Chalew is an artist, educator, and environmental activist.  She contacted LICI to see if we could donate some native Louisiana irises that had actually come from the wild.  LICI donated ten one-gallon pots of the I. giganticaerulea irises.

LICI's Report to the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc Non-profit

August 20, 2024 Abbeville, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative was asked by their partners in the Abbeville Red iris restoration project in Palmetto Island State Park if they would send the group a report on all of the activities that have taken place since the project started in 2023. Here is the report:

LICI report to the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park 

April 2023:  LICI set up a meeting at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk during the iris bloom in response to numerous requests from some followers of the LICI Facebook page to have the boardwalk swamp included on LICI’s annual map of places to see irises blooming.  Friends of Palmetto Island State Park’s Roxanne Burnette, President, and Shannon Neveaux, Advisor to the Board of Directors of the non-profit, spent two hours meeting with LICI volunteers Henry Cancienne, Kent Benton, Forest Benton, and LICI’s President Gary Salathe.  By the end of the meeting, LICI had accepted the offer by the Friends group to take over the management of the Abbeville Red iris display at the boardwalk swamp.

April 2023: LICI organizes a trip to the property of the largest landowner within the Abbeville Swamp while the Abbeville Red irises are blooming. The purpose of the trip is to locate irises, estimate how many may still be growing in this area of the swamp, and look for the causes of their depletion over the last few decades. They discover that vast areas of that portion of the Abbeville Swamp no longer hold any irises.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-invited-to-tour-parts-of-privately-owned-abbeville-swamp-home-to-the-i-nelsonii-iris

May 2023: The Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism's Louisiana State Parks approves LICI’s proposal to manage and increase the number of I. nelsonii (Abbeville Red) Louisiana irises growing in Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk swamp.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/department-of-louisiana-state-parks-approves-lici-s-iris-management-proposal

May 2023: The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park board of directors agrees to participate in the LICI iris restoration project in the park and issues a grant to LICI to fund the effort. 

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/friends-group-to-partner-with-lici-to-manage-irises-at-palmetto-island-state-park-boardwalk

June 2023:  LICI expands its iris nursery in New Orleans to grow out Abbeville Red iris seedlings being donated by Kent Benton. 

July 2023: LICI agrees to help the Vermilion Parish Tourist Commission market the 2024 Louisiana iris bloom at Palmetto Island State Park. 

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-to-help-vermillion-parish-tourist-commision-with-marketing-iris-bloom

July 2023:  Kent Benton donates hundreds of Abbeville Red iris seedlings he created through his Captive Breeding process. (Only two of the many pots Kent donated are shown in the photo.) 

The seedlings were planted in the LICI nursery to grow out for planting in Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp in December.

July 2023:  With the owners' approval, LICI does its first annual Abbeville Red seed collection in a portion of the Abbeville Swamp and then uses various groups to pot the seeds and germinate them. The irises will be planted at Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp in December 2024.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/first-annual-abbeville-swamp-iris-seed-collection-is-completed-by-lici

August 2023: In response to concerns that the Abbeville Red irises were dying in Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp due to an extended drought, LICI organizes an emergency watering when the cypress tree leaves turn rust-color and fall off the trees. Water was pumped 400 feet into the dry swamp from a pond. 

August 2023:   LICI’s Gary Salathe does a presentation to members of the Vermilion Parish Policy Jury and other interested members of governmental commissions on the Abbeville Red iris and its threatened native habitat in the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park. Shannon Neveaux, a Friends member and coastal activist, organized the meeting.

September 2023:  LICI organizes a Chinese Tallow tree (Chicken tree) removal event in the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp using volunteers from the Friends group and various community organizations.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-leads-chinese-tallow-tree-removal-event-at-palmetto-island-state-park

October 2023: LICI’s Gary Salathe, along with Donald Sagrera, Executive Director of the Teche-Vermilion Fresh Water District, give presentations during the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority meeting in Abbeville about saltwater intrusion caused by the extended drought. Salathe’s presentation highlighted the threats this creates to the Abbeville Red irises in the Abbeville Swamp and at Palmetto Island State Park.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-gives-a-presentation-on-the-abbeville-red-iris-to-cpcrpa

October 2023:  LICI organizes a second emergency watering of the irises in the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp, which appeared to be dying due to the now historic drought. Water was pumped 400 feet into the dry swamp from a pond.

November 2023:  Kent Benton donates two hundred mature Abbeville Red irises from his nursery for the December planting at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp.

November 2023: The Abbeville Red iris seedlings growing at LICI’s New Orleans iris nursery, which Kent Benton donated in July, are ready to be transplanted into the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk swamp.

December 2023: LICI organizes an iris-planting event at Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp. Kent Benton donated the 700 Abbeville Red irises that are planted, either as full-size plants or, earlier in the year, as seedlings. Volunteers from LICI, the local community, and the Abbeville Garden Club braved harsh weather conditions to plant the irises. 

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-complets-first-annual-iris-planting-at-palmetto-island-state-park

December 2023: Two signs created by LICI are installed at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk after extended negotiations with the State Park’s Baton Rouge main office on the wording to be used.  These signs are the first time anything has ever been mentioned within the park that removing plants is against the law.

December 2023:  LICI collects the Abbeville Red seedlings from the three groups germinating the seeds collected in July from the Abbeville Swamp. The 800 seedlings are planted into containers at LICI’s New Orleans nursery. They will be planted into Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp during the winter of 2024.

February 2024: LICI adds Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk to its interactive map of places to see Louisiana irises blooming. Three months later, at the end of the spring iris bloom season, over 46,500 people will have clicked on and viewed it in Google Maps.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/lici-s-2024-louisiana-iris-viewing-location-map-acheives-record-number-of-views

March 2024: The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park’s board of directors votes to allow LICI to hold an iris bloom event at the same time as the Friends’ annual Stir the Pot fundraiser.  Both organizations hope to benefit from introducing new people to each other’s group.

March 2024:  LICI’s Gary Salathe gives a presentation to a Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) conference on the Abbeville Red iris and its threatened native habitat in the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park.  The organization is comprised of representatives from industry and small businesses, fisheries, farming, oil and gas, government agencies, individual citizens, landowners, civic organizations, hunters, scientists, engineers, environmentalists, economists, and urban planners.

March 2024:  LICI organizes a tour of portions of the Abbeville Swamp to better understand the threats to the swamp and why, over the last decades, the Abbeville Red irises are disappearing. Some of the landowners and a Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries staff member with experience in water control structures took part in the tour.

April 2024: LICI markets its iris bloom event at Palmetto Island State Park on social media in the Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas. The postings are placed on over 8,000 Facebook newsfeeds.

April 2024:   The Palmetto Island State Park manager, Andrea Jones, approves LICI’s plan to use the boardwalk swamp as a clearing house to relocate some of the Abbeville Red irises back into the Abbeville Swamp each year.  The plan is to grow out between 1,500 to 2,000 seeds each year that will be collected from the Abbeville swamp.   The irises from the seeds will be planted into the park’s boardwalk swamp.  Iris experts will confirm that they are pure Abbeville Red irises as they bloom the following spring.   Many of them will then be relocated back into the swamp later that year.

April 2024:  LICI holds its first Abbeville Red iris bloom event during the Friends’ Stir the Pot event. 

The educational event included a guest speaker, Patrick O’Connor, who gave a presentation in the park’s meeting room on Louisiana irises and the history of the Abbeville Red iris being named a separate species of Louisiana iris.  Other iris experts answered questions at the nearby boardwalk’s displays.

Each of the estimated two hundred event attendees paid the entrance fee for the Friends’ Stir the Pot event. 

April 2024: LICI organizes an investigative trip to the property of the largest landowner within the Abbeville Swamp while the Abbeville Red irises are blooming. The purpose of the trip was to better estimate how many irises can still be found in their area of the swamp and to look more closely at the causes for their slowly disappearing. They confirm that vast areas of that portion of the Abbeville Swamp no longer hold any irises, and the number of irises there could likely be numbered by only hundreds of plants, not thousands. 

May 2024:   Patrick O’Connor, the guest speaker at LICI’s iris bloom event in April, returned to Palmetto Island State Park to give the same presentation to members of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association in the park’s meeting room. The presentation was followed by the group touring the boardwalk and walking some of the nearby trails.

That afternoon, Patrick repeated his presentation to members of various governmental agencies and some of the Abbeville Swamp's owners. This was followed by LICI’s Gary Salathe giving a presentation to the group about the threats to the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park from extremely high tides and saltwater intrusion.

May 2024:  LICI’s Gary Salathe is invited to give a presentation to the Vermilion River Alliance at their meeting in Abbeville on the Abbeville Red iris and its threatened habitat.  After the meeting, one of the organizations in attendance offered to help fund the protection of the Abbeville Swamp from saltwater intrusion and extremely high tides.

June 2024: LICI’s Gary Salathe visits the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Cameron Parish, where he sees numerous examples of large and small water control structures that could be used at the Abbeville Swamp to combat saltwater intrusion and extremely high tides.

June 2024: During their June Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) general membership meeting, its president, Patrick O’Connor, gives a revised version of his May presentation in Palmetto Island State Park on the Abbeville Red iris.  His presentation now includes the threats to the Abbeville Swamp and Palmetto Island State Park’s irises.  He also tells the group he supports LICI’s efforts in southern Vermilion Parish and will look for ways the GNOIS can help.

July 2024:   For the second year in a row, LICI completes its annual collection of the Abbeville Red seeds from the Abbeville Swamp in Vermilion Parish.  Five different organizations volunteer to germinate the 2,187 seeds for LICI.  The seedlings will be collected from the five groups in December and planted into containers to grow out at LICI’s New Orleans nursery.  The irises will then be planted into the Palmetto Island State Park’s boardwalk swamp during the winter of 2025.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/second-annual-abbeville-swamp-iris-seed-collection-is-completed-by-lici

July 2024:  The Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS), as stewards of the Louisiana Iris Species Preservation Project, donates multiple pots of Abbeville Red irises to LICI’s iris restoration project at Palmetto Island State Park.

https://www.licisaveirises.com/post/louisiana-species-preservation-project-donates-abbeville-red-irises-to-lici-s-project

The GNOIS is also considering a proposal by LICI for the two groups to partner in using a portion of the GNOIS Louisiana iris nursery in New Orleans’ City Park to propagate Abbeville Red iris plants and also grow them out from seeds for use in the Palmetto Island State Park’s iris restoration project.

August 2024: The Louisiana Iris Festival group votes to postpone the first festival until 2026 and change its name to the Acadiana Native Iris Festival.

State grants for festivals have been discontinued at their past levels. The organizers were worried that not hearing from other grants yet is pushing the envelope on putting the festival financing in place early enough to be certain it is fully funded in time for commitments that need to be made soon.