KTgreen

Outdoor Living Project

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I love to sew and create things but also love to be outside working in my gardens and yard. We’ve had a LOT of rain in the past month and I have been forced to stay indoors.  So I look at it as an opportunity and went back to updating my outdoor furniture that I started on last year.  Here’s the post that references the original changes: https://ktgreendesign.com//a-finished-project/

The next step in the project was to recover the two cushioned dining chairs.  I bought good-quality chairs thinking that they’d last longer, but the upholstery on them turned nasty right away.  Since the covers couldn’t be removed, I cleaned them with a scrub brush and oxi-clean.  When they were hopelessly pilled and not coming clean I decided something had to be done.  So I recovered the cushions with this cute chevron fabric that matches the sofa and chair. It’s a fabric from Premier Prints that I bought from fabric.com.  The covers on all of the furniture is removable since I used velcro on the cushions so I can wash them whenever necessary.  Accidents happen!  Especially when those grandkids visit!

Patio Project
Love these chairs!
Patio Project
Added another pillow to the sofa. It just needed a little more padding for my reading pleasure!
Patio Project
Another cute little pillow for this chair.  See that sweet little flamingo table? My friend Donna did that mosaic. And she doesn’t do mosaics anymore. So sad. She was so talented. And I need more mosaics!
Patio Project
Here’s the entire set!
Patio Project
This is Maggie’s favorite spot!

While I’m done with the screened room, we have a huge deck that covers the entire back of our house.  There is a little alcove by our bedroom that has some furniture that is crying for new cushions.  Will I ever be done?  Hopefully not!

 

 

Island Dogs

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We take cocktail cruises out to Mason Creek and turn around just past Petty Creek.  At that juncture, there is an island inhabited by three really really big dogs.  We haven’t seen their people.  Could they be there by themselves–surviving by their own wits and survival skills?

Dogs in the Hood
Danger! Sound the alert. Trespassers!
Dogs in the Hood
It’s that Fat Jack, a tasty appetizer! Quick untie the boat!
Dogs in the Hood
Untie the boat, how am I supposed to do that?
Dogs in the Hood
Whatta ya mean, you don’t have thumbs! You have got to come up with a new excuse!
Dogs in the Hood
Pheww, that was a close one!

Adventures with Michelle in the Garden

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It’s Wednesday and Michelle is posting about an experience in the garden this week…

A Rose Bush with a Past

In the garden

Some years ago we lived in Brooksville and we had a lovely garden. I say ‘had’ because it’s just not the same since we moved.

But I digress, many years ago we had a neighbor whom we dubbed The English Redneck. Even though his wife was from New Jersey, and he was an ex-telecom guy, Mr. Foster was from Cornwall and was in love with the American ‘country’ style. We knew he was leaving by the sound of the rumbling tail pipes on his mudder tire clad Ford. He’d taken a job as a land clearer and one day he came home and stopped by our house with a huge stump in a bucket. In his best BBC accent stated, “I just couldn’t kill it,…can you save it?” Apparently, he’d been hired to demolish an old house on the edge of Brooksville – when we say old, we mean like 100 years +. Growing up the side was this enormous rose bush. He took a chainsaw to it and used the Bobcat to pull out the stump. Yes, the stump that was now at my door. I thanked him for it and knew we’d be in for a huge hole digging dilemma, because digging in my yard was an epic adventure in new and innovative ways to ruin even the best yard tools and your back warring with the Live Oak roots! I didn’t care – I have to plant it. I found a somewhat sunny spot and we dug. It was barely adequate, and the plant struggled for years. Long and gangly with sparse tiny flowers. Jon was always “Get rid of that thing”. Then we moved and it nearly died…I think it missed us. When finances drove me to the point of tears and decided to really empty the unsellable home, I went around and dug up anything and everything I liked. Secretly, I hoped one of the bankers would show up and trip in a hole….

At our new home, I’d wanted to remove some formosa azaleas the previous owners planted in the blazing sun. They’d be pretty for a week or two in Feb. then a hedging nightmare the rest of the year, as they were shaped into big green balls (I really don’t like hedges). At the time they didn’t look that big, and I had a place to move them to…wow, I think the neighbors could’ve sold tickets to that circus! We dug and heaved, until our only tool left to use was the truck. Yup, we took those seatbelt material straps and bound them like a straightjacket – hooked them to the Sequioia’s hitch and out they came. At least the digging was easy for The Stump. But those azaleas were pissed at me and dropped dead, even with the better placement under the live oaks and lots of attention.

In the garden

Fast forward, today I was dead-heading the blossoms and noticed just how big this thing has become! It’s taller than I am, and consumes the flower bed. You can smell the sweet blooms from the driveway and have to argue with the bees that don’t understand what you’re up to with those scissors. This is a rose with no season, I trim it, it takes a break and blooms again – all year.

In the garden

Yes, Jeremy was right, he told me that “If you cut it, it’ll just get bigger!” It isn’t a Knock-Out Rose, it’s too old for that. I call it my Cemetery Rose. An old friend once told me about people planting roses at graves so their loved ones would have fresh flowers, a lovely thought. Those are old roses. I think that this plant has a will of its own. Even though its house and owners have moved on, it’s found a place in the sun to keep smiling. And it makes me smile too.

In the garden