Louisiana Iris Inspiration

Pictures, Articles and Information

Louisiana Irises in Marie Caillet's Pond, Little Elm, Texas

Flags Flying at Marie Caillet's Pond in Little Elm, Texas

Louisiana irises were virtually unknown as garden plants just a few years ago. Today, they are rapidly becoming widely recognized and popular in most of the country, not just in their southerly native haunts. How can one account for this rapid rise from their "discovery" as wildflowers in the 1920s and 1930s to an increasingly prominent place among garden perennials today?

Easy to grow? Yes. They have a few cultural requirements but are hardly difficult. Adaptable to variations in climate and soil? Very much so. North or South, water culture or garden beds. Wide range of colors and forms among the modern hybrids? Absolutely. About any color you can describe, with scapes of varying heights and flowers in nuanced shapes from flat to flaring and ruffled.

One can give any number of reasons why these plants have risen so rapidly to horticultural heights. But the real answer lies in the people who have worked with and championed them and in the stunning scenes these irises create in the garden and the wild.

The links below will take you to pages on this site and others that show off Louisiana irises and explain their rapidly rising popularity. Click in the list below to jump to the category that interests you, or just scroll on down the page. For information on growing, check out the Growing Tips and Culture page and for a look at the five species go to Louisiana Iris Species.

Articles and Pictures

Award Winning Louisiana Irises

Louisiana Irises in Public Gardens

Louisianas in the Landscape and Pond

Art

Iris Sites

Personal Garden Websites

Water Gardening

General Gardening Sites

Hard to Classify (but interesting)

	Articles and Pictures on Louisiana Irises
		The late Marie Caillet was a founding member of the Society for Louisiana Irises and was well known in SLI and to many in the gardening public. She wrote frequently for the SLI Newsletter (now Fleur de Lis) and for national publications. An exceptionally nice article by Marie with beautiful pictures of her garden appeared in Fine Gardening in the July/August 1996 issue. For a limited time, Marie Caillet's article Jazzy Louisiana Irises is available in pdf format.
		Another Caillet article on Louisiana irises appeared in Pond and Garden, which is no longer published but available in pdf format. It is a 273k download. The magazine cover with a photo of the Louisiana iris 'Marie Caillet' is available as a separate jpg file.
		Richard Sloan of Alma, Arkansas, is a long-time iris grower and currently Treasurer of the Society for Louisiana Irises. Dick has created a site, Louisiana Iris Suite, with gorgeous pictures and insightful observations. By all means, take a look. Hosted by Victoria Adventure.
		Slides from Clyde Ikins' collection of Louisiana irises in the Hill Country of Texas include some seldom seen cultivars. It is a nice set of pictures, so browse around the site for interesting information on water plants. Note the attached comments of Dick Sloan.
		The Tucson Area Iris Society website has an excellent collection of Louisiana iris pictures. There are galleries by Frank Over, Margie Valenzuela, and Tony Kurtz, with thumbnails that can be clicked for nice big pictures.
		The 2003 Society for Louisiana Irises Convention in Lafayette had wonderful garden tours. The website for AIS Region 1 (yes, that's Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts, of all places) hosts a nice set of pictures from warmer climes.
		The Summer 2006 issue of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation magazine contained a good, general article on Louisiana irises by Gary Noel Ross with nice pictures. This link is to the entire issue of the magazine on the LWF website; it is 1.5 megabytes in pdf.
		Richard Sacher of New Orleans, owner of American Aquatic Gardens is a hybridizer of water lilies and a fan of Louisiana irises. His nursery was one of the first in Louisiana to bring a real variety of Louisianas to the public. Check out his Gallery of Louisiana Irises on the Victoria Adventure site.
		Here is a gallery of wild Louisiana iris pictures, probably I. giganticaerulea, found in a photo database to which photographers can upload their pictures. There is not a huge amount of variation, but the larger images have very nice detail.
		The Men's Garden Club of Houston maintains a site with a few Louisiana iris pictures and links to information on the F.A. C. McCulla Memorial Iris Bed at the Mercer Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Back To Topic List
	Award Winning Louisiana Irises
		The Mary Swords DeBaillon Award is the highest honor accorded a Louisiana iris. The first award was made in 1948, and the winners collectively present a visual history of the development of these irises from the early years of their modern "discovery" to the latest work of busy hybridizers. This link will take you to pictures of the DeBaillon Award winners, but there are around 50 pictures, so be prepared for download time. Back To Topic List
	Louisiana Irises in Public Gardens
		The Iris Friendship Garden in Highland Park, Rochester, NY, will turn you around if you think Louisiana irises will not perform in a cold climate. Photographer Gene Lupinetti has documented the Iris Friendship Garden every year since it opened in 2004, and his gorgeous pictures tell the story of this fabulous iris garden, a beautiful park and an amazingly adaptable plant.
		The Louisiana Iris Garden in the Baton Rouge Botanic Garden, Independence Park. A handsome setting designed specifically for Louisianas and featuring many cultivars produced by the late Joseph K. Mertzweiller, one of the premier hybridizers of Louisiana irises.
		Windrush Gardens, LSU Rural Life Museum, Baton Rouge (coming soon).
		City Park, New Orleans, including the New Orleans Botanical Garden, the Sydney and Walda Bestoff Sculpture Garden, and the new Big Lake planting (coming in spring).
		Longue Vue House and Gardens, New Orleans (coming soon). Back To Topic List
	Art
		Artist Margaret Stones has chronicled the flora of Louisiana. Her watercolor of "Louisiana Iris Hybrids" show a group that exhibit the open, graceful and still beautiful form of the species and older hybrids. The website allows one to zoom in on smaller sections of the watercolor, which reveals nice detail.
		Lori Young produces a series of very nice giclée's that feature Iris giganticaerulea. Take a look at the offerings of L. Young Studio. Back To Topic List
	Iris Sites
		The Society for Louisiana Irises. The one organization dedicated for Louisiana irises. To learn more about it, go to Organization.
		American Iris Society. The national organization dedicated to all types of irises.
		SIGNA, the Species Iris Group of North America, is devoted to all the irises, not just the Louisiana group, or Hexagona. Dennis Kramb has created a wonderful Iris Species Database for SIGNA that has pictures of a variety of forms represented within each of the species. When you get to the site, scroll down and click on each of the Louisiana species: I. hexagona, giganticaerulea, fulva, brevicaulis and nelsonii. A great website.
		Rodney Barton has an excellent North American Native Iris page that is a must for pictures and information on the species. Click on "Alphabetical Listing" on Rodney's page (or click here) to see the entire iris species list, then select I. brevicaulis, fulva, hexagona, giganticaerulea or nelsonii to go to the Louisiana species.
		Greater New Orleans Iris Society. This is a brand new site (July 2012) still under construction. There should be good information up soon, and especially in the lead-up to the April 2014 Society For Louisiana Irises convention, which GNOIS will host in New Orleans.
		Tucson Area Iris Society. A fine website containing excellent information on the organization, the hybridizing iris activities of its members, and articles on iris culture and related topics. The Tucson Area Iris Society was the host for the 2005 Society for Louisiana Irises convention.
		The Greater St. Louis Iris Society is one of a few local iris organizations that maintain a website, and this one is very nice. There is information on all types of irises on a well designed site. It looks like iris folks in the St. Louis area would do well to hook up with this group.
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	Personal Garden Websites
	Some of the most interesting sites on the web are the pages that dedicated gardeners have created to share their personal gardens. When they grow Louisiana irises, there are often pictures, not just of of individual flowers but of beautiful and creative uses in the landscape. Most of the following links take you to pages with Louisiana iris pictures, but while you are visiting, take a tour of the rest of the gardener's website.
		Tom Spencer's Daily Muse at his Soul of the Garden site (and check this older page, too).
		Stone The Gardener's Louisiana iris page is well worth a look part of a very nice and varied personal garden site. Interesting reading and good information.
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	Water Gardening
		Victoria Adventure. An excellent, non-commercial water gardening site. It has several pages relating to Louisiana irises that are cited above.
		Epstein LaRue's Pond Page. This interesting site testifies to the diverse environments in which people enjoy ponds and to the interesting people who create them. Features articles, pictures and resources on ponds. Back To Topic List
	General Gardening
		Dave's Garden is a general gardening site with lots of information on many topics. The "Plant Files" tab features uploaded information from members, including pictures and performance comments. There are quite a few Louisiana iris pictures, but limited comments and recommendations at this time. An exception is extensive input on 'Black Gamecock," which is widely grown around the country. The information available on this cultivar may suggest the potential of a site like Dave's Garden for Louisiana iris aficionados and gardeners in general. Nice pictures of Louisiana irises. The Forums include threads on irises, often including Louisiana topics. Highly recommended site on gardening. Partial access is free, but full access is worth a few dollars.
		Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs. An online catalog of online catalogs related to gardening and plant topics. Handy site.
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	Hard to Classify
		This is a fun and fascinating five minute feature story on National Public Radio that features Jeanette Hardy, the author of Gardens of New Orleans: Exquisite Excess, interviewed over her cell phone by Scott Simon in 2001 while Jeanette was standing in the swamp in Jean Lafitte National Park, eyeball-to-eyeball with Iris giganticaerulea. Scott presumably was comfortable in some studio somewhere.
		Here's a site with a brief account of the battle between the magnolia people and the iris folks (the good guys) over the Louisiana state flower. The magnolias played rough and won, but now *Iris giganticaerulea is the official wildflower* of the Great State of Louisiana**. The picture on the site is of a plant collected in Texas by Rodney Barton. Go figure.
		Here is a nice video clip by Jerry Parsons of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service that features Louisianas. It offers a pretty and amusing view of Louisiana irises in the San Antonio Zoo. This is a 2.5 meg .wmv file that will open in your default video viewer.
		The color range of Louisiana irises is said to be the widest among all the iris groups due to the naturally occurring reds represented by I. fulva and I. nelsonii. If this is not enough, you can go to the Louisiana Secretary of State website and color your own Louisiana iris blossom on the spot. Back To Topic List
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