Contributed by the Society for Louisiana Irises
It’s always a good day when photos roll in from a project you worked on years ago — especially when they show that everything turned out just as you had hoped. That was the case in April 2025, when we received new images from White Oak Estate and Gardens in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shown below.
Back in 2019, Joe Musacchia — then president of the Society for Louisiana Irises (SLI), and later to become president of the Greater New Orleans Iris Society (GNOIS) — asked if some of the GNOIS members could organize an iris restoration planting at White Oak. His vision was simple but powerful: plant native Louisiana irises in a spot where they’d be visible to the many people and groups attending events at the estate in future years. It would be a wonderful opportunity to educate the public about this special native plant.
At the time, SLI was planning to hold its national convention at White Oak the following year, making the location even more ideal. Unfortunately, those convention plans were scrapped due to COVID — but the irises had other ideas. Over the past six years, they’ve flourished.
The planting was led by a group of GNOIS members whose goal was to rescue Iris giganticaerulea — one of our native Louisiana iris species, and the official wildflower of the state of Louisiana — from a threatened habitat and replant them in public-facing locations where they could be both preserved and appreciated. White Oak Estate has proven to be one of the best examples of that vision in action.
A big part of that success is thanks to Chef John Folse, the driving force behind White Oak. A true champion of all things Louisiana, Chef Folse has been a strong supporter of our efforts to showcase the state’s natural beauty — including its iconic native irises. His groundskeeping team deserves a heartfelt thank-you for nurturing the planting over the years.
During that 2019 planting, volunteers from both GNOIS and SLI came together to plant 1,000 I. giganticaerulea irises. These plants had been rescued just a week earlier from a tract of land that was being put up for sale and was expected to be developed. The rescue was carried out by another GNOIS-organized volunteer group. It was a massive team effort — and it clearly paid off.
🎥 Watch the original planting here:
Six years later, it’s incredibly rewarding to see how well these irises have taken hold — not just surviving, but thriving. For everyone who helped rescue, transport, and plant those irises: your hard work lives on in full bloom.
This is what a win looks like.
