LICI Finishes Spring 2023 Monday Work-Mornings at Bayou Sauvage Refuge

May 10, 2023 New Orleans, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has completed its spring 2023 Monday work mornings at the Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge today. A small but dedicated group of volunteers have met at the refuge each Monday morning since March to work at clearing brush, bushes, and Chinese tallow trees from around young native trees planted in recent years to reforest the refuge's ridge forest in its boardwalk area. During the last six weeks, a crew from Limitless Vista, a local job training non-profit associated with Gulf Corps, joined them.

Photo: Some volunteers and Limitless Vistas workers are shown getting ready to start work during a March 27, 2023 Monday work morning at the Bayou Sauvage refuge.

LICI’s Monday morning volunteer work crew has killed over 5,000 Chinese tallow trees of all sizes in the ridge forest at the boardwalk during the last 2 1/2 years to open up areas for native trees to be planted or to clear around native trees that were planted by other volunteers either last winter or in previous years. The native trees were faced with either stunted growth or dying from being overshadowed and crowded out by the brush and the Chinese tallow invasive tree species. This is the third year that LICI has organized Monday work mornings for this purpose.

Photo: Two Limitless Vistas workers are shown clearing weeds, vines, and brush from around the boardwalk at the Bayou Sauvage refuge on one of the Monday workdays. On some Mondays, they did general maintenance at the boardwalk while others worked on clearing brush and Chinese tallow trees from around the native trees.

Unlike previous years, the volunteers focused on killing only young tallow trees 1 ½” in diameter or smaller this spring. Partially because of their work's impact from previous years, the US Fish & Wildlife Service staff acquired funding to hire a commercial Chinese tallow eradication company to work the entire refuge during this summer. However, the contractor will only be killing larger trees over 1 ½” in diameter.

Photo: This photo from a 2021 Monday work morning at the Bayou Sauvage refuge shows a volunteer using the hack and squirt method of applying a herbicide to a Chinese tallow tree.

Hack-and-squirt herbicide applications are one of the least expensive manual herbicide application methods. This method introduces the herbicide into the stem using spaced cuts made at a convenient height, below the last live branch, around the trunk. Using a hatchet or similar device, frill cuts or downward-angled incisions are made evenly spaced around the stem, one per inch of diameter. This is the method to be used by the contractor and is the same method the volunteers used, which is recognized within the forestry industry as the most efficient way to kill Chinese tallow trees if they are growing among other trees that are to remain.

Photo: As the volunteers would clear the brush from around native trees that had been planted in previous years, in many cases they would need to install a nutria guard around the tree. The volunteers have discovered that once the brush has been cleared around a tree, it becomes accessible for deer to scrap the tree to mark its territory. This damages the tree and sometimes will kill it. The deer prefer the native trees and will leave the Chinese tallow trees alone.

The Monday morning crew also used loopers to cut back other types of bushes that were negatively impacting the young native trees that had been planted.

Photo: The group of volunteers that came out on the last day of the 2023 spring Monday work mornings is shown in the photo. Typically, each Monday could have a different mix of volunteers come out since it was difficult for most of them to come every Monday.

The plan is for LICI to start back up this fall once the weather cools. The volunteers will not only continue work clearing around native trees that have been planted but also open up new areas for tree plantings that LICI has planned with their tree planting project partners, Common Ground Relief, this winter.

Department of Louisiana State Parks Approves LICI's Iris Management Proposal

May 6, 2023 Mandeville, La.

The Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism's Louisiana State Parks has approved the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative's (LICI) proposal to manage and increase the number of I. nelsonii (Abbeville Red) Louisiana irises growing at the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk. The proposal was submitted to the park manager, Andrea Jones, three weeks ago. The department's naturalist approved LICI's proposal this week after reviewing the existing project and the future work to be done outlined in the proposal. LICI will now be a part of this important project to maintain and increase the number of I. nelsonii irises at the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk.

Photo: The boardwalk at Palmetto Island State Park where the I. nelsonii

species Louisiana iris planting is located.

The project began in 2011 as an idea proposed by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and then implemented by the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. to plant rare I. nelsonii irises at the boardwalk as a way for the public to see them growing and blooming in their natural habitat. The only place where they grow in the wild is a nearby privately owned swamp that is not open to the public. "We will do our best to continue the hard work that has been done by Friends of Palmetto State Park's volunteers through the years since to maintain the plantings," says Gary Salathe, president of LICI.

Photo: The Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk has numerous informational

displays about the I. nelsonii irises.

After receiving the state's approval to move forward on the project, Salathe went to the boardwalk on Wednesday, April 5th, to meet with Andrea and Jennifer Viator, Interpretive Ranger for the Department of State Parks. Also attending the meeting was a Bayou Teche region civic booster, Peter Patout, who had joined Gary for the day.

Photo: Park manager Andrea Jones and Jennifer Viator, Interpretive Ranger for the Department of State Parks, are seen on the boardwalk during their meeting with representatives of the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative on May 4, 2023.

Peter took the opportunity to discuss with Andrea and Jennifer a Louisiana iris festival he is helping to organize for 2025. One day of the educational festival would take place at the park's boardwalk and focus on the rare Abbeville Red irises as they bloom. Andrea gave her permission for the festival planning to move forward and agreed to reserve the meeting room at the entrance to the boardwalk for the 2025 event.

Gary got down in the swamp as Peter met with the two. He removed the remaining iris cultivars that had been discovered growing among the Abbeville Red Louisiana irises at the boardwalk a few years after the planting was created in 2011. He also cut off all of the seed pods from the Abbeville Red irises since they likely cross-pollinated with the cultivars during the iris bloom last month.

Photo: LICI's Gary Salathe is seen removing the seed pods from every iris within the swamp at the boardwalk on April 5, 2023. It is likely that all of the I. nelsonii irises cross-pollinated with Louisiana iris cultivars that were growing and blooming among them.

Photo: Light blue Louisiana iris cultivars blooming among the I. nelsonii irises on April 5, 2023 in the swamp at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk.

This is LICI's proposal to the State Park:

• We will remove the last of the iris cultivars from the boardwalk area.

• We will remove the seed pods from all of the irises in the boardwalk planting.

• We will grow out 800 – 1,000 I. nelsonii irises at our iris holding area that are being donated by Kent Benton.

• We will plant any of the irises donated by Kent Benton that have grown large enough into the boardwalk area this fall when the water level is low.

• We will remove any questionable non-Abbeville Red irises during the 2024 spring bloom.

• We will market the boardwalk irises as they bloom to attract the public's attention to help publicize these rare irises and the park’s role in preserving them.

• We will thin out the irises in the future, when needed, for possible planting into the Abbeville Swamp.

• We will welcome any group to partner with us that is willing to help with the work or donate funds to help offset the project's cost.

Photo: The I. nelsonii irises donated by Kent Benton will be grown in containers at the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative's iris holding area like these irises. The photo is from a volunteer iris planting event in January at LICI's iris holding area.

The iris seedlings are being donated to LICI by iris enthusiast Kent Benton of Livingston Parish. Kent has been very interested in the I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris for many years. A few years ago, he developed a way to propagate them from seeds using pollen collected from the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk irises with the then-manager's permission. He is a preservationist of this rare species of iris and is interested, along with others, in helping preserve their only native habitat; the nearby privately owned Abbeville Swamp.

Photo: LICI's volunteer, Kent Benton, is seen collecting pollen from a few of the I. nelsonii irises blooming at the Palmetto Island State Park on a March 23rd visit to the park with Gary Salathe to meet with representatives of the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park.

He received permission from the then-manager of the park

to produce more I. nelsonii seedlings for next year.

Gary was also met at the park's boardwalk on Thursday by a board member of the Friends of Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. non-profit. On behalf of the board, he invited Gary to speak at their May 30th board of directors meeting about a proposal LICI made to them last month to partner with them on the project by either directly being involved or helping with funding. Gary accepted the invitation.

Photo: I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris blooming in the swamp at the boardwalk in Palmetto Island State Park on April 5, 2023.

"We appreciate the encouragement and support we have received from the park's manager and other Department of State Parks staff members. It is always easier to come into a project after others have already done much work. We appreciate the hard work that has gone into this project to get it started in 2011 by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park and the work that members of the Friends group have done since then to try and maintain it. We are looking forward to doing our part to continue their work," Salathe said.

Photo: (left to right) Jennifer Viator, Interpretive Ranger for the Department of State Parks, Andrea Jones, park manager, and LICI's Gary Salathe, at the end of their meeting

at the park's boardwalk on April 5, 2023.

LICI Tours Parts of Privately Owned Abbeville Swamp - Home to The I. Nelsonii Iris

April 10, 2023 Abbeville, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) was invited last month by one of the families that own the Abbeville Swamp, near Abbeville, La., to tour portions of their swamp. The swamp is a privately owned swamp that is the only place in the world where the I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris grows in the wild. The iris' common name is the Abbeville Red.

The visit was postponed until the irises in the swamp were blooming, which began at the end of March. LICI organized a small group to do the tour last week on Wednesday, April 5th, 2023.

Photo: (Left to right) Randall Perrin, one of the family members of the owners of the swamp, Gary Salathe, LICI president, Kent Benton, LICI volunteer and iris enthusiast, Forest Benton, LICI volunteer and Mark Schexnayder, president of the Society for Louisiana Irises are shown just before beginning their walk into the Abbeville Swamp on April, 5th. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

LICI invited Mark Schexnayder to join the tour of the swamp. He is retired from the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, works for Batture LLC, an environmental engineering company, and is president of the Society for Louisiana Irises. While he was working with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries (WL&F), Mark participated in several trips to the Abbeville Swamp as part of the annual monitoring the WL&F was doing of the irises growing in the swamp. He also helped organize a WL&F-sponsored planting of some I. nelsonii irises at the Palmetto Island State boardwalk in 2011.

Photo: I. nelsonii irises are shown growing in their natural habitat at the Abbeville Swamp on April 5th. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

The Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park has accepted LICI's offer to take over the management of the irises at the park's boardwalk and to increase their numbers. LICI has submitted a proposal to the Department of State Parks to accomplish these goals. The Friend's group is also discussing with LICI the idea that they could become a partner in the project by supplying funding to cover LICI's expenses for the project.

Photo (Left to right) Kent Benton, Forest Benton, and Gary Salathe are seen in a clump of Abbeville Red iris on April 5th in the Abbeville Swamp. Photo by Henry Cancienne.

"We are hopeful that our tour of the Abbeville Swamp will be the beginning of our learning how LICI, other interested groups, and individuals can help the landowners preserve their special property and their special irises within it, " Salathe sums up.