Sandy Keeler received a gold certification for her residential property outside Waycross. Nearly a decade ago, Sandy moved an older house to an open pastured site and immediately started to establish a native plant garden. She started with an impressive collection of native trees to provide structure to her garden and shade for some of the understory plants. Some of the trees are up to 30’ tall already. The site is fairly moist, so a variety of ferns and facultative wetland shrubs are thriving in the shade of the maturing trees. To add to the native plants she has introduced to the site, Sandy is making the most of native plant immigrants from surrounding areas (such as false foxglove, goldenrods, frost asters, spiderwort), including blackberry which she harvests. This blend of purposeful landscaping with natural wildscaping provides a great habitat for wildlife.
