Courtesy Scenic Lafayette
Like much of Lafayette, Mall Boulevard will be bedecked in azaleas this spring.
Lafayette is only one of sixteen cities throughout the country to take its purple-pink beauties seriously enough to become a designated “Azalea City.” It’s also the sole member with a major Mardi Gras celebration coinciding with the flowers’ peak in early March. (We hear only lovely things about the Azalea Festival Parade, which will promenade down the streets of Wilmington, North Carolina, for the seventy-second time on April 6, but it does, alas, lack moonpies.) But back in Lafayette, visitors in town to toast King Gabriel and Queen Evangeline will wonder at the addition of fuchsia, lavender, and pink to the traditional hues of green, gold, and royal purple; a springtime Fat Tuesday rolls around every few years—and it’s far easier to catch beads if your fingers aren’t gloved and numb—but this Floral Mardi Gras comes with the concerted efforts of Scenic Lafayette to not just maintain, but also expand the azalea footprint across the city.
Azaleas have long been part of the Hub City’s attractions—particularly the formosa variety, which is also known as “The General Lafayette.” The Azalea Trail was established in the 1930s and for over fifty years slowed springtime traffic through the historic district to a perfectly understandable crawl as locals and out-of-towners alike marveled at what warm weather could bring. In 2015, Scenic Lafayette embarked on its inaugural project to revive the trail, which over the past three decades had ceded some dominance across the landscape. “In springtime, people used to just buy azaleas,” said Buddy Lee of Independence, Louisiana. Past president of the Azalea Society of America as well as the inventor of the encore azalea, Lee currently serves as chairman of the society’s Azalea City Program. “There are so many plants people can buy now instead,” he said. But with the Azalea City program, the society can champion cities who have re-centered their beautification efforts around the still-popular bloom.
[Read this: Sitting down with Dr. Neil Odenwald, the man behind the Southern Garden Symposium]
Lafayette was designated an Azalea City in 2016 and aims to keep that reputation by partnering with historic sites like Bendel Gardens and Mouton Plantation to replant bushes and suffuse Lafayette with a pretty blush that evokes civic pride far more than pretty embarrassment. “I just love what Washington D.C. is doing with the cherry blossoms and how Tyler, Texas, celebrates its roses,” said Denise Lanclos of Scenic Lafayette. She studies these cities for ideas on how Lafayette might similarly flourish. The existing twenty-mile trail receives the majority of Scenic Lafayette’s attention currently, but they hope one day to outfit all of Lafayette’s big boulevards with azalea blooms, to designate Garden Districts throughout the city, and to section out the trail and its attractions along the way. “It’s a vision we have,” said Lanclos, who sounds confident that her splendid dream will catch on.
For those hoping to admire this year’s azaleas without the distraction of troupes and floats, a more reverent viewing opportunity arrives on March 9 with the Bike and Classic Car Cruise. Scenic Lafayette is partnering with TRAIL (Transportation Recreation Alternatives in Louisiana), the engine behind events like Cycle Zydeco and the Sugarman Triathlon, for a ride down the Azalea Trail, which winds from Mouton Plantation, through downtown Lafayette, into a promised Boulevard of Floral Splendor, and back down St. Mary Boulevard toward the Hilliard Museum and the Vermilion River beyond.
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue. Subscribe to our print edition here.
