GNOIS and LICI are partnering with Gretna City Park on an important initiative to bring the tall blue native Louisiana iris, Iris giganticaerulea, to a beautiful and easily accessible setting. This 80‑acre park will soon showcase these iconic irises in a place where residents and visitors alike can enjoy them.
Scenes with wild Louisiana irises in full bloom could soon brighten the lagoons at Gretna City Park. The park offers ideal habitat, and LICI and GNOIS already have healthy Iris giganticaerulea plants ready to go. With just a few hours of volunteer help, the park’s spring landscape could be embellished with striking stands of these native irises.
Before its major redevelopment from 2018–2023, Gretna City Park was a quiet, somewhat overlooked green space on the West Bank — a wooded, low‑lying landscape with ponds, informal trails, and natural drainage features. It served nearby neighborhoods well, but remained largely unknown beyond its immediate community.
The park’s modern chapter began with Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) program, a statewide initiative aimed at helping communities adapt to increased flooding and climate change. Gretna City Park was selected as the pilot project for Jefferson Parish, becoming the first completed LA SAFE landscape project. This designation reshaped the park from a simple natural area into a regional model for water‑based resilience design, led by the firm Waggonner & Ball.
For more detail about the project’s design and vision, the Waggonner & Ball website offers an excellent overview.