We’ve belonged to Longleaf Breeze for five years and called it home for almost three. During that time our focus has been effective food production; we’ve paid almost no attention to the appearance of the farm. With the completion of the lodge, however, we enter a new phase of welcoming guests, and we want them to like not only what they taste but what they see as well.  Amanda knows that whatever we do needs to be both low cost and low maintenance. So she’s signed up for a series of courses that we hope will equip her to become her own landscape designer.

Listen — 21:27

As promised, here are the sites Amanda was describing that offer great information about beneficial insects in the garden:

• http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/NE/  (UC Davis site)
• http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/  (Univ. of Florida site)

Looking at the lodge from the south, you get a taste for how scruffy it looks. What a lovely rocky canvas on which Amanda can paint beauty!